Champagne La Closerie winery - Jérôme Prévost
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Before Jérôme Prévost produced his first single-varietal Meunier champagne called "Les Béguines" in 2003, nobody would have believed that such a great wine could be made from this variety. Since then, Prévost's wines have been rare gems that are hard to come by.
In 1987, Jérôme Prévost inherited a parcel of Pinot Meunier from his grandmother in the village of Gueux in the north-eastern Montagne de Reims. Although Meunier is the third most important grape variety in Champagne, unlike Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, it has never been vinified as a single variety. However, the "never" is not correct and this is not entirely unimportant in Jérôme Prévost's career. When he was trying to find an idea of what he, who was not a winemaker at all, should do with the vineyard, the yield of which had previously been delivered to the co-operative, he came across the winemaker René Collard. He had been making his own champagne since 1946, but had sold virtually none of it. So he had a lot of vintages in storage - all of them single-varietal Meuniers.
Prévost was enthusiastic about these champagnes and decided to learn the winemaking trade. He did so with none other than Anselm Selosse, one of the few independent winemakers in Champagne at the time who enjoyed international success. Prévost then acquired a small cellar and produced his first own champagne with the 2003 vintage. The rest is history.
His "Les Béguines" quickly became famous and the bottles from the just two hectares were snatched out of his hands from then on. His first rosé called "fac-simile" is even rarer and even more sought-after. in 2017, he was given the opportunity to acquire some plots of land adjacent to his vineyard from a winemaker friend, which also contains old Meunier. This champagne is called "&". More recently, the "Grand Cru" champagne has been added in a very small edition with old vines of Chardonnay from the Côte de Blancs and Pinot Noir from the Montage de Reims. His wines are all fermented and matured in used barriques and tonneaux.
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