Aÿ Grand Cru MV 15 - Henri Giraud

Aÿ Grand Cru Multi-Vintage 15 - Champagne Henri Giraud

The emblematic cuvée of this Champagne house. To be discovered without further delay!

96/100 Parker

Conservation: 2022 - 2040

By William Kelley in 2021: "Disgorged in March 2020, Giraud's new NV Brut Grand Cru Aÿ Fût de Chêne MV15 is terrific, bursting in the glass with aromas of pear, orange oil and peach intermixed with nuances of warm pastry, toasted almonds, beeswax and already well-integrated light honey. Full-bodied, textured and concentrated, this is a deep, muscular Champagne with striking structure and vinosity, supported by lively acids and complemented by a fine mousse."

• PRESENTATION: MV, like Multi Vintage. This fetish cuvée bears the mark of our commitment to make Champagne once again become the "Grand Vin de Champagne". Standing on the three pillars of these great wines: small yields, small containers and the original grape variety: the Fût de Chêne cuvée has left an indelible mark on Champagne since 1990. As the repository of Champagne's natural know-how and modernity, MV also reflects our singular and unique way of expressing a vintage that goes far beyond the restitution of the image of a single year. As the backbone of our collection, MV is the result of an unprecedented work on traceability and vinification in oak barrels which has led us to understand the forest terroirs as well as our own vine terroirs. MV also reflects our singular and unique way of expressing a vintage that goes far beyond the simple restitution of the image of a single year. 

• WORKING ON THE AROMA: Like the creators of the greatest perfumes, we work on the aromatic hook that will boost the wine to the height of its expression. 

• PERPETUAL RESERVE: The "Réserve perpétuelle maison" started with the 1990 vintage and has been nurtured since then with each harvest, giving the animal touch on which the subtle aromas of a vintage play. The heart of Pinot Noir offers the fruit underlined by beautiful mineral bitterness and the salinity of the Aÿ Grand Cru.

• TERROIR: The Champagne terroir certainly has the richest historical past, producing the wine of reference for the greatest journalists, writers and poets of all times...and yet remains the most unknown. Very few wine lovers have been able to lift the thin vegetal skin of its hillsides, plunged into the intimacy of the deep faults of its limestone and draw from it, like the roots of its little Pinots, the mineral inspiration: a delicate finish. Very few have felt the Valnon hillside vibrating in the July sunshine and the great crows circling in the warm winds that blow from it in the early morning; the grape pickers, sparkling with dew and sweat, the shears mired in sugar: power and roundness of aromas. The great white river of mist gliding gently down the river, gradually submerging the village, the hillsides and pushed by the sudden breeze, discovering the sunny valley as a magician's veil would: nicely minty freshness, incomparable elegance of the Pinots d'Aÿ. It is in this setting that our family has been working the vines since the 17th century.

• OAK CASKS: At Champagne Henri Giraud, following the teachings of history, we have been making wine in small oak barrels for more than thirty years. Indeed, until 1950, there were no vats and all the wines of Champagne were vinified in oak barrels, 90% of which came from the Argonne forest. Then came the massive commercialisation, industrialisation and the arrival of stainless steel vats. The Argonne cooperages, who had accompanied the quality boom in Champagne for more than four centuries, went into a deep slumber. If Champagne winegrowers favoured this forest, nearly eighty kilometres away, for the construction of their barrels as early as the 16th century, it was because they benefited greatly from it: the finesse and discretion of its tannins are equalled only by the extreme poverty of its nutrient-poor cheery soil. The staves have such a tight mesh and grain, that the wood fades completely behind the blond wine to accompany it and bring it to light. From our work in vinification and maturing in small Argonne oak barrels, we have learned that the oak carries its terroir like the vine. But if the vine gives wine every year, a forest only gives two hundred year old oaks once in its life. It is a precious asset that we must magnify and protect. To do this, we work with the ONF and each year we finance the planting of about eight thousand new oak trees through the "Save the Argonne Forest" operation. We choose each tree in the forest with great care; they are all geolocated and traced at the forest station. Each stave split by the merandier is traced and engraved before being assembled into a dress, while the bottoms are glued with buckwheat flour to exclude gluten residues. Our barrels work for five years. They then continue to whisper the songs of their terroir all the way to Japan, where they are reused to make sake.

• VARIETIES: 80% Pinot Noir, 20% Chardonnay. 

• GROUND: Ay Grand Cru

• TASTING : A sublime golden robe. A wine that will be said to be fat, and which suggests a superb ageing potential. A mentholated nose with aromas of anise. A basket of strawberries and pears. On the palate, a very fine and balanced champagne which opens a first mentholated, peppery attack, with a fruity (fresh fig), strawberry tart and vanilla aromas. A saffron finish.