We’re just over a week out from Thanksgiving and I’m continuing my “Champagne Campaign” with arguably the best turkey pairing of all time, blanc de blancs. If you’re not familiar with the terminology, blanc de blancs (white of whites) is Champagne made from 100% white grapes, primarily chardonnay. The style is generally crisper and cleaner in style with a strong minerally finish, due to the high chalk content of the Paris Basin (a large, ancient seabed that makes up the soils Champagne, Chablis and even the White Cliffs of Dover). Very few other wines have the acidity and effervescence to cut through an entire Thanksgiving dinner.
The Champagne I’m featuring this week is the Fourny & Fils Brut Nature Blanc de Blancs from the Premier Cru of Vertus, located in the properly named Côte de Blancs. Because this wine is a Brut Nature, it is vinified with no residual sugar, in other words, BONE DRY! The wines are sustainably grown using organic viticulture. 30% of the wine is aged for six months in Burgundian oak, adding a little extra body where many blanc de blancs fall short.