This is the only availability in the country of this ultra-rarity.
This tiny, 'why haven't I seen this before?,' project is the side hustle of Champagne's Fred Savart. 'Éphémère,' meaning ephemeral, actually doesn't quite fully express the here today, gone tomorrow spirit of the project.
Here's how it works. Savart starts by identifying vineyards around the region he'd be excited to work with. He produces a single, limited cuvée from these vineyard(s) and then moves on. No cuvée is repeated beyond a single year's production. There is one cuvée of 'Éphémère' per year, always ultra-limited in production. This year, just 4,500 bottles were produced.
The project reflects Savart's restless curiosity, his desire to explore the region beyond his (now famous) domaine in Ecueil. While the quaintness of estate bottling dovetails with our modern conceptual preoccupations, many Champagne producers are showing a growing interest in exploring the region's seemingly inexhaustible diversity. Éphémère' is emblematic of this movement. It is a surfeit of passion rather than commercial ambition that justifies the work required to eek out a few thousand bottles in a faraway place.
This cuvée, 'Éphémère 10' is 100% Pinot Noir, about 2/3 of which is from Verzenay and the remainder from the Vallée de la Marne further south. It's entirely 2017. The vin clair was aged in barrel, as you'd suspect, and the finished wine was dosed with 3 grams. It was disgorged in October of 2019.
The wine has lovely purity, more candied citrus than one expects from BdN, alongside decadent crème anglaise-y suggestions. The wine stretches out in a ginger and chamomile direction in its Zalto, and the fruit deepens wonderfully. The texture is multilayered and notably generous, with a starched feel in the middle. Like other Savart lovelies, the wine grows in subtlety in the glass, leaving you at a perfect convergence of richness and detail.
Cheers,
Jason
