Champagne Friday 102 – Bonnaire 2016-1975

Every Friday The no1 Champagne expert in the world will taste new & old Champagne s to give You a tip or two for the weekend. This week Richard Juhlin tasted vintages 2016 to 1975 with Jean-Emmanuel Bonnaire in Cramant. [read the full champagne story]

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

Bonnaire according to Champagne Club by Richard Juhlin

★★★★

The major individual producer in Cramant was originally called Bonnaire-Bouquemont, and for four decades Bonnaire has provided us with some of the creamiest Chardonnay wines the world has ever seen. My now deceased and deeply missed friend Jean-Louis Bonnaire moved his office and reception down to the ultra-modern plant in the middle of the village’s vine rows.

‘Bonnaire make textbook Cramant for the sensualist.’

RICHARD JUHLIN

Now the sons Jean-Emanuel and Jean-Etienne own some of Cramant’s best locations, and the grapes from here are always used in the vintage wine or the Cuvée Prestige. These wines in particular are among the area’s real charmers, if they are given about ten years in the cellar. Malolactic fermentation is used, and thus the wines gain a buttery, mature character in their youth, but the acidity is always very high, lifting the wines up to an exotic wealth in their middle age and a splendid nutty fullness when mature. Most evident in the rare Bonnaire Collection.

Interview | Jean-Emmanuel Bonniare | Cramant

One of Champagne’s great personalities have left us