In Champagne’s Vallée de la Marne, Benoît and Mélanie Tarlant manage their vines and their cellar the way a mad scientist runs his laboratory. A pinch of that, a dash of this; everything is done painstakingly by hand and with keen attention to every detail.These 12th generation vignerons buck the trends of the Marne, where Pinot Meunier dominates. Instead, the Tarlants have planted half of their 13 hectares to Pinot Noir, and just under a third to Chardonnay.Tarlant père, Jean-Mary, made waves in Champagne in the ‘70s by producing some of the region’s first Brut Nature wines, with no added dosage; the aim here is to allow the purity of the fruit to beam through the glass, without any manipulations. With all of the extraordinary terroir, meticulous farming and winemaking techniques practices in use at Tarlant, you’d think the wines would sell for a ton of money—but no, somehow, over 12 generations, the Tarlant name has remained under the radar.
Professional Reviews
Wine Spectator
What importer Bowler Wine has to say about this wine...
32% Pinot Noir/32% Chardonnay/32% Pinot Meunier/4% Petit Meslier + Arbanne + Pinot Blanc. This cuvée makes up 70-90% of Tarlant's production and "is my daily obsession", says Benoît Tarlant. Zero reflects the Tarlant emphasis on unadorned terroir, with no selected yeasts and no dosage. The compostion is generally 60% of the base vintage--in this case 2015--plus 40% reserve wines. The organically farmed, hand-harvested fruit comes potentially from all 63 of Tarlant's parcels from across 4 villages (Oeuilly, Boursault, St-Agnan and Celles-lès-Condé), with each vinified separately to give maximum flexibility in dialing in the blend. The fruit is gently pressed and the juice fermented with natural yeasts in Burgundy barrels ranging from new to 30 years old. The wine generally does not go through malolactic fermentation. Moved by gravity only, the new vintage is blended with barrel-aged reserve wines. The 2016-base was bottled in 2017 and disgorged in 2023 with zero dosage.
Details
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Grape Variety
Chardonnay , Pinot Meunier , Pinot Noir
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Vintage
NV
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Size
750ml
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Farming Practice
Organic
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Style
Crisp , Elegant , Minerally
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Sweetness
Dry
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Body
Medium Bodied
Champagne
Champagne boasts some of the world’s greatest luxury brands with Krug, Cristal and, of course, Dom Perignon. But it’s also home to hundreds of small dynamic producers—farmers who grow their own grapes (often organically) and make (often with natural methods) tiny amounts of pure and absolutely delicious wine that reflect the individual personalities of their villages and terroirs. Toast with these wines, for sure. But also treat them like the great wines they are: taste, drink, explore!