2017 Champagne Christophe Baron Les Hautes Blanches Vignes Brut Nature | Charly-Sur-Marne Champagne, France 1.5L MAGNUM

With Pinot Meunier fruit harvested from old vines, tiny yields and a minimalist approach in the cellar, Champagne Christophe Baron creates wines of great depth, high complexity and intense minerality. The style is vinous, dry and gastronomic. No dosage is added, which allows the terroir to shine through.
Each parcel is vinified individually, and the wine crafting is as naturally non-interventionist as possible. Both the alcoholic and malolactic fermentations are carried out with indigenous yeast, in a mix of demi-muids and barrels. The wines are neither fined or filtered, are disgorged with no dosage and are bottled only in magnums.
This dedication to purity and craft yields serious Champagnes that are highly singular and energetic. The wines offer a remarkable combination of power, structure and transparency, and a creamy finish adds further complexity.
As a result the Champagnes created are intensely soil-expressive and strikingly original in personality, with vibrant balance and intensity. 1275 magnums produced. Disgorged 2021. | Christophe Baron

Deeply yellow with a gorgeous bouquet, the 2017 Les Hauts Blanches Champagne comes from a very low-yielding crop in this vintage. Bergamot and marzipan tones dance on with honeydew melon on the nose. The palate is rich and concentrated with a silky mousse and seamless experience mid-palate. Finishing exceedingly long this is generous, gratifying Pinot Meunier champagne that has some serious cellaring potential. Give this about 30 minutes of air to take in the full range of flavors and aromatics. | 96 points, Owen Bargreen for owenbargreen.com

...a rich, burnished wine. Deep in color and intensity from tiny yields, the Hautes Blanches is a rich Champagne endowed with notable textural breadth and energy. Orange peel, hazelnut, dried flowers, chamomile, tangerine oil and light oxidative notes build in this powerhouse Meunier. The red fruit character of Meunier is so expressive. This is an especially vinous style, even for Christophe Baron. The Hautes Blanches Vignes is just as much wine as it is Champagne. | 95 points, Antonio Galloni, Vinous

The richest, most generous iteration of this bottling to date, Baron's 2017 Brut Nature Les Hautes Blanches Vignes bursts with aromas of golden orchard fruit, honeycomb, fresh bread, walnuts and dried white flowers. Full-bodied, fleshy and vinous, it's a touch more oxidative in profile than its more tightly wound predecessors, delivering a generous core of fruit, complemented by a pinpoint mousse, and concluding with a sapid finish. These characteristics make it the most immediately delicious rendition of Les Hautes Blanches Vignes to date, but they're also likely to render it one of the less long-lived iterations of this cuvee. | 94 points, William Kelley for The Wine Advocate

Champagne always tastes better in magnum. | Ernest Hemingway