Lilbert Fils Extra Brut

Name a better sound than that of a champagne cork popping from a bottle in a bustling wine bar or merry restaurant! That's why at Bellota,  the Lilbert-Fils NV Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru Extra Brut was a natural choice for us to pour by the glass. Bursting with aromas of crunchy green apple, fresh citrus and white flowers matched with a lovely zippy tension on the palate and a crisp clean finish this is the go to champagne for this Holiday Season. Perfectly suited to long sunny afternoons on Bank Street paired with Moonlight Flat Oysters and a delicious morsel or two prepared by Chef Nicky. See you soon for a glass or three...or even a bottle! TIFF & ALASTAIR

Lilbert-Fils is a small, slightly under-the-radar grower in Cramant with a loyal following, and it's easy to see why. With 50% of the blend for the first wine of the house coming from a perpetual reserve of Cramant Chardonnay started in the 1990s by Bertrand Lilbert's father, this is an entry level that is anything but simple and youthful. The style is rather floral, with apricot and jasmine notes floating over a real hit of savour from the reserve and a bone dry, mineral presence. It's singular, yet harmonious; a blanc de blancs that takes care of the simple pleasures, yet hides rather a lot under the bonnet. TOM HEWSON, decanter.com

The wine delivers a refined, youthful aromatic constellation of pear, apple, limestone minerality, bread dough, white flowers and incipient smokiness in the upper register. On the palate the wine is bright, full-bodied and still quite youthful, with a fine core of fruit, very good soil signature, brisk acids, frothy mousse and a long, nascently complex and very nicely balanced finish. This is a lovely bottle of Blanc de Blancs, which could do with a year or two of cellaring to let it emerge more fully from behind its lovely girdle of acidity. Good juice. JOHN GILMAN

Hailing from the villages of Cramant (60%), Chouilly (30%) and Oiry, and based on the incisive 2021 vintage, complemented by 50% of a perpetual blend initiated in the 1980s, Lilbert's latest NV Extra Brut Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs was disgorged in May 2024 with a dosage of three grams per liter. Unfurling from the glass with aromas of crisp green apple, fresh citrus fruit and white flowers, it is medium-bodied and has a tensile personality, laden with bright acids and concluding with sapid finish. It will be even better in about three years and will offer a broad drinking window. As with all the wines in Lilbert's cellar, it is vinified in tank. KRISTAPS KARKLINS