Jerome Prevost La Closerie 'La Closerie' NV
Pairs with: Pan-seared duck breast with a cherry reduction, crispy roasted pork belly, white truffle pasta, high-end sashimi (especially fatty tuna or uni), or a rich, savory mushroom tart.
Good for: Experiencing the absolute pinnacle of "cult" Grower Champagne, blowing the mind of a wine nerd who thinks Pinot Meunier is only a low-tier blending grape, or enjoying a sparkling wine that behaves far more like a profound, structured white Burgundy in a glass.
Grape: 100% Pinot Meunier (often featuring a microscopic field-blend fraction of Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir from the oldest vines).
I am from: Gueux, Petite Montagne de Reims, Champagne, France.
The Story: In the late 1990s, the global wine world began waking up to the revolution of Grower Champagne, and Jérôme Prévost quickly became one of its most enigmatic high priests. Having inherited a tiny 2.2-hectare plot of vines from his grandmother in the obscure village of Gueux, Jérôme initially didn’t have a cellar of his own. Enter his close friend and mentor, Anselme Selosse (the legendary godfather of low-intervention Champagne), who generously offered Jérôme a corner of his own cellar in Avize to craft his first vintages. By 2018, Jérôme finally built his own beautifully minimalist, eco-friendly cellar right next to his historic vineyard, Les Béguines.
Unlike the rest of Champagne, which sits on stark white chalk, the terroir of Gueux is composed of unique, 50-million-year-old marine sands and Thanetian limestone clay. This specific soil is absolute magic for the often-underappreciated Pinot Meunier grape. Jérôme treats his vineyard like a pristine garden—completely chemical-free, plowed by hand, and harvested at maximum ripeness. In recent years, to combat devastating losses from frost and hail, he introduced the "&" (Ampersand) bottling under the La Closerie label. This genius cuvée seamlessly marries fruit from his own beloved estate with grapes meticulously sourced from neighboring parcels in Gueux that he helps farm. True to his anti-bureaucratic spirit, Jérôme skips traditional vintage dating on the front label, opting instead for a discreet lot number on the back (like LC21 or LC22) to denote the base harvest year. Spontaneously fermented in neutral oak barrels and bottled with an incredibly low dosage (Extra Brut), this is an uncompromising, artisanal monument to a single village.
Why You'll Love Me: It is uncommonly vinous, deeply intellectual, and astonishingly complex—a dry, structured masterpiece that trades simple citrus fuzz for a muscular, layered, and hauntingly beautiful landscape of flavors. In the glass, it pours a deep, shimmering straw-gold color with a faint, regal amber-pink hue from the Meunier skins and a remarkably fine, quiet bead of bubbles. The nose is spectacularly expressive and evolving, greeting you with a fragrant symphony of baked red apples, bruised pears, and orange rind, intricately interwoven with complex top notes of toasted hazelnuts, puff pastry, white truffles, and a faint whisper of exotic spice. On the palate, it hits with a medium-to-full body that feels satisfyingly dense, broad, and texturally rich, courtesy of its time in wood. Its deep, savory fruit core is effortlessly pulled into alignment by a laser beam of cool-climate acidity, before sailing into an exceptionally long, dry, and mouthwatering finish marked by a distinct, saline-mineral and smoky sand grip.
