Hugues Godme - Fins Bois Grand Cru Extra Brut NV

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Paul Wasserman: “The Pinot for this cuvée is right on the chalk. It provides a profound mineral anchor while the Chardonnay goes all Tinkerbell around it, conjuring wildly with her wand discreet little comets of flavor. Then the intricate blend of reserve wines from no less than five vintages infuses everything with umami. Godmé’s Extra-Brut is baroque not in the sense that it is busy, but because the mineral anchor is so logical and the embellishments are so crystalline. It reminds me of Bach. As to the finish, it is nothing short of contemplative: deeply saline, elegantly chalky, and marvelously fine and precise. Though an NV cuvée, this is, looks, and behaves like a prestige cuvée. There are few champagnes in our portfolio I drink more of, and every time I do, Hugues’ Grand Cru Extra Brut reels me in, quiets me, and floors me. As Terry Theise wonderfully put it ‘Lots of wines, many of them good wines, let you taste the noise. But only the best let you taste the silence.’ This is one of those.”

Hugues Godme Description

Hugues makes around 900 cases of his Extra Brut Nature a vintage. The blend is 60% Chardonnay, 30 % Pinot Meunier, and 10% Pinot Noir. The final blend is usually around 60% reserve wine from the previous four vintages. Dosage is 3.5 grams/liter.

Hugues Godme now has 7.5 hectares of over 70 micro-parcels in five villages in the Montagne de Reims area.

A View from the Cellar: 93 Points

Hugues Godmé’s “Fins Bois” bottling is his old vine cuvée in his lineup of non-vintage wines, made from vines that are sixty years of age. The vins clairs are barrel-fermented for this cuvée and the cépages is sixty percent pinot noir and forty percent chardonnay. The current release is a blend of thirty-five percent 2013, thirty-five percent 2012, twenty percent 2011 and ten percent 2010 juice; the wine was given fully seven years aging sur latte prior to its disgorgement in January of 2022 and finished non-dosé. It offers a superb aromatic constellation of white peach, apple, hazelnut, a complex base of soil tones, brioche, smoke, dried flowers and a deft touch of buttery oak. On the palate the wine is bright, full-bodied and very precise, with a lovely girdle of acidity, fine mid-palate depth, very refined mousse and a long, complex, impeccably balanced and still quite youthful finish. - John Gilman