Carte d'Or

Drappier Champagne Brut – Carte d'Or

The Drappier Champagne Brut Carte d'Or is the prestige cuvée from the Drappier house in Urville, Champagne, which was first produced in 1952.

The Drappier Champagne Brut Carte d'Or is a blend of 80% Pinot Noir, 15% Chardonnay, and 5% Pinot Meunier. This slightly copper-colored cuvée, which is almost a Blanc de Noirs, has a lively mousse with fine bubbles and entices with aromas of white peach, subtle notes of red berries, lemon zest, hazelnuts, and a delicate scent of roses. The Champagne is harmonious, complex, and has good length, finishing with a mineral note shaped by the chalky soil.

Drappier Champagne Brut – plenty of Pinot Noir, little sulfur

The Drappier family has been living and working in the south of the Champagne region, in the Côte des Bar, since 1808. They possess a good 100 hectares of this unique terroir, which is characterized by a cool climate, chalk-rich soils interspersed with Kimmeridgian marl, and optimal hillside orientations (south-southeast).

After harvesting the grapes, Champagne Drappier takes great care to produce the most elegant and aromatic wines as naturally as possible. Upon arrival at the winery, the grapes are gently pressed using mechanical low-pressure presses. Only the cuvée, the first part of the pressing, is used for the Champagne. The grape must is handled with great care to avoid oxidation and is processed without pumps, using only gravity. The base wine is fermented with natural yeasts and aged in stainless steel tanks, with 5% matured for a year in French oak barrels. To give the Champagne more complexity, 40% of this cuvée consists of reserve wines from older vintages—a special technique with a significant tradition in Champagne. The Carte d'Or cuvée has naturally undergone malolactic fermentation, meaning the malic acid in the wine has transformed into milder lactic acid, which ensures a special mouthfeel with a slightly creamy structure and adds further layers to the Champagne blend.

To carry out one of the most important steps in creating a good Champagne—the blending, or combining of the various base wines for the second fermentation—three generations of the Drappier family come together to contribute their taste and lived experience: grandfather André Nicolas, father Michel, as well as grandchildren Charline, who heads sales and marketing; Hugo, who currently works as cellar master at Drappier; and Antoine Drappier, who has returned to cultivating the vineyards with the help of horses.

Naturally, the Drappier Champagne Brut undergoes its second fermentation using the traditional bottle fermentation method: the Méthode Champenoise. The Drappier Champagne Carte d'Or is released onto the market after three years of bottle aging. The Champagne is neither filtered nor colored. And Michel Drappier is known for using only as little sulfur (less than 30mg/l) as necessary.

Carte d'Or – a sparkling wine and its values

• Côte des Bar
• 80% Pinot Noir
• 15% Chardonnay
• 5% Pinot Meunier
  
• Dosage 5.5g/l
• Brut
• 12% vol. alcohol