Gruet’s Cuvée Arbane …

The Gruet Cuvée Arbane … 100% Arbane yes.
Something Else entirely!

With a fresh and quite light, lemon-white colour through which a very fine and persistent mousse. Then, on the nose, one gets a first whiff of floral notes; jasmine, elderberry, rose – followed by zingy but ripe lemon. When allowed to mellow in the glass (or a day in the bottle), the lemon slowly brings along some grapefruit, pineapple and (dry white) melon. All within measure, refined, nowhere too in-your-face’y.
The mouthfeel is brilliant with the mousse playing its role to keep the very well balanced aspects all quite light. The dosage is hardly noticeable – from the taste of it, one would estimate 2g. max, and notes of soft white peach, light albedo, with a very long finish on the thyme/mint/dill spectrum with the albedo bitters lingering on.
Would work miraculously with e.g., flounder with serious sauce and herbs, swordfish with almond crusting, maybe tuna or mackerel, or white meat.
Saw a score somewhere of 91/100 (ah, Hachette), but that’s too low. Buxeuil doesn’t have any Arbane (production) of its own, but with this Gruet wine, it has a flagship. Arbane being at only 0,018% (yes, percent) of Champagne’s acreage, this cuvée highlights the ‘need’ (want!) for quite an extension of that.

Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord