Producer Article
A. R. Lenoble
Last edited on 5/17/2020 by LindsayM
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AR Lenoble is a relatively small family-owned Champagne house, one of the rare ones to still be entirely independent.
Based in Damary, AR Lenoble runs 18 hectares of vineyards (45 acres) using environmentally-friendly practices, and split between the Grand Cru village of Chouilly, the first village on the Côte des Blancs (10 hectares of chardonnay); the Premier Cru village of Bisseuil, located between Mareuil-sur-Ay and Tours-sur-Marne (6 ha of pinot noir) and home of rich and structured Pinot Noir; the village of Damery, located to the immediate east of Cumières (2 ha of Meunier).
As soon as they arrived at AR Lenoble nearly 25 years ago after taking over from their father Jean-Marie Malassagne in 1993, sister-and-brother co-owners Anne and Antoine Malassagne made the decision to start conserving their reserve wines in 225-litre barrels using the principle of the perpetual reserve, a process that continues to this day. A few years later, they invested in 5,000-litre casks to allow for an ageing process that was slower than in barrels. In these containers, reserve wines were able to obtain additional brightness and freshness.
More recently, in 2010, as part of their constant research for ways to improve the quality of their wines, they decided to add an additional element to the perpetual reserve by conserving some of their reserve wines in magnums under natural cork and staple. The magnum format has the ideal “liquid to oxygen” ratio, and as these reserve wines age under 1.5 bar of pressure and are therefore protected from oxygen, a subtle, exceptional aromatic palate develops over time – and yet the reserve wines remain fresh.
AR Lenoble is a relatively small family-owned Champagne house, one of the rare ones to still be entirely independent.
Based in Damary, AR Lenoble runs 18 hectares of vineyards (45 acres) using environmentally-friendly practices, and split between the Grand Cru village of Chouilly, the first village on the Côte des Blancs (10 hectares of chardonnay); the Premier Cru village of Bisseuil, located between Mareuil-sur-Ay and Tours-sur-Marne (6 ha of pinot noir) and home of rich and structured Pinot Noir; the village of Damery, located to the immediate east of Cumières (2 ha of Meunier).
As soon as they arrived at AR Lenoble nearly 25 years ago after taking over from their father Jean-Marie Malassagne in 1993, sister-and-brother co-owners Anne and Antoine Malassagne made the decision to start conserving their reserve wines in 225-litre barrels using the principle of the perpetual reserve, a process that continues to this day. A few years later, they invested in 5,000-litre casks to allow for an ageing process that was slower than in barrels. In these containers, reserve wines were able to obtain additional brightness and freshness.
More recently, in 2010, as part of their constant research for ways to improve the quality of their wines, they decided to add an additional element to the perpetual reserve by conserving some of their reserve wines in magnums under natural cork and staple. The magnum format has the ideal “liquid to oxygen” ratio, and as these reserve wines age under 1.5 bar of pressure and are therefore protected from oxygen, a subtle, exceptional aromatic palate develops over time – and yet the reserve wines remain fresh.