100% Chouilly Chardonnay from their top plots. Sur lattes for four years. Dosage 5 g/l. Cooked-cream and toasted-nuts aroma. Folded like thick cream linen, with an almost marzipan richness, and would taste sweet were it not for a broad band of citrus-pith and hawthorn-blossom bitterness running through every fold. And then, on the end, wild peaches giving a zing of green. A bit of astringency in the bubbles providing balance to the creaminess. Drinking range: 2023 - 2030Rating: 17Tamlyn Currin - www.JancisRobinson.com (Jun 2023)

Champagne R&L Legras

The Legras family has a history in Chouilly that goes back to the sixteenth century, and the association with viticulture can be traced back Honoré Legras who bought vines there in 1808. In the 1950s his descendants, brothers René and Lucien, set up as a récoltant-manipulant and in 1972 changed to negociant-manipulant since they were buying grapes to supplement what they grew on their on five hectares. Gérard Barbier, an employee of the brothers, took over and ran the house for over thirty years, eventually handing over to his son Julien.

Legras make Chardonnays from the Grand Cru classified village of Chouilly at the beginning of Côte des Blancs (except the rosé, coloured by red wine they source in Ambonnay). Well known and highly-respected in France it is used by many top-flight restaurants as 'house' champagne, including the Tour d'Argent and Guy Savoy. The house style exalts the softer and creamy style of Chouilly Chardonnay which is so often more approachable than the firmer wines of the other Côte des Blancs villages.