$89.99 Instead of $2,249.
Only 21 Bottles Left of Our Most Wanted Champagne

Dear Artisans,

Pierre Peters is the hardest wine in the shop to get. It is a hostage situation. We are allocated twice a year, the quantities are set months in advance and based on how much we surrender to the importer's demands, and there is no calling up for more. This is drop two. When it is gone we are done until spring.

Last time this went out the magnums were spoken for the same day. If you have been waiting for Chetillons in large format, this is the moment, because there is exactly one of each.

We cap the Cuvee de Reserve at six bottles per customer and the magnums at one, which we do on every tight allocation. It is the only way to spread it across everyone who wants some rather than letting two orders take the lot.

Le Mesnil-sur-Oger is the greatest Chardonnay village in Champagne, the home of Salon, and it spent forty years a single percentage point short of Grand Cru status before the promotion finally came in 1985. The chalk sits close to the surface here. The wines come out taut and saline and almost severe when young, then open into something extraordinary.

Rodolphe Peters is the fourth generation to run the family domaine, which was founded in 1919. He farms 18 hectares, and 45 of his 63 parcels are in Le Mesnil. Nobody has a deeper holding in the village.

Pierre Peters is one of the legendary recoltant-manipulant grower-producers of Champagne, meaning they grow their own grapes, make their own wine, and bottle under their own name. No big-house blending. No corporate winemaking. Just pure, terroir-driven Blanc de Blancs from Grand Cru Chardonnay vineyards in Le Mesnil.

Le Mesnil-sur-Oger is where the greatest 100% Grand Cru Chardonnay vineyards on earth are. Below are the average market prices of the two most famous Le Mesnil single-vineyard Champagnes, Salon and Krug Clos du Mesnil, against ours.

Pierre Peters’ vineyards and winery sit in the Le Mesnil-sur-Oger Grand Cru village, only 350 meters, a four-minute walk, from the legendary cult house Salon. The same chalk soils. The same Grand Cru terroir. The same Chardonnay vines rooted in millions of years of fossilized seabed. The difference is the name on the label, and the price.

Les Chetillons is a single vineyard just southeast of the village. The family bought three plots there in 1930 and has bottled it separately since 1971. The vines run from 40 to 70 years old, the wine ages at least six years on the lees before disgorgement, and it is widely considered one of the half dozen greatest Blanc de Blancs on earth. James Suckling gave the 2018 98 points.

100% Chardonnay off chalk from Le Mesnil, Cramant, Avize and Oger. Partial malolactic, aged in stainless, oak cask and concrete on fine lees, 24-plus months sur latte. Peters builds structure on acidity and minerality together rather than acid alone, and it shows: this is sleek and chalky and endlessly drinkable, and it is the bottle we open more than any other Champagne in the shop.

The wine that made the estate famous, and one of the few Blanc de Blancs anyone seriously argues belongs beside Salon. Depth here comes from the interplay of three parcels within one vineyard, vinified separately and blended late. Galloni calls it an archetype for Mesnil and puts the drinking window at 2028 to 2038, so this is a bottle to buy and forget about for a few years.

2017 was a Chardonnay year in Champagne, low-yielding and concentrated. This is the first release where Rodolphe extended lees ageing by another six months, and the extra time reads on the palate. In magnum it will still be improving in 2035.

Same village, different ground. Montjolys sits on deeper soil with more clay, which gives a rounder, more generous wine than Chetillons without losing the chalk underneath. William Kelley describes it as power without weight, and says it drinks well earlier than its sibling. If you want one to open and one to keep, this is the one to open.

The Rare Wine Co. imports Selosse. When they decided to bottle their own Champagne they went to Le Mesnil for the fruit, blended parcels for finesse, and priced it like nothing else in the village. Toast and brown butter coming up on the nose, concentrated green apple and wet chalk underneath.

Grand Cru Chardonnay from the family’s own holdings in Le Mesnil and Oger, two or three vintages blended, full malolactic, 36 months en tirage and a light 8g/L dosage. Finesse is the point here. It is the aperitif Champagne we recommend when someone wants Grand Cru chalk without the Grand Cru invoice.

Moncuit is a Mesnil house with some of the oldest vines on the entire Cote des Blancs, farmed by Nicole Moncuit since 1977. This particular cuvee is the value in the range, drawn from the family’s vines in the Cote de Sezanne rather than the village itself, with 24 months on the lees and 7g/L dosage. Four critics, four 91s, and it costs sixty dollars.

There is no reordering Pierre Peters. The allocation is what it is, we have no leverage to ask for more, and the next one does not arrive until spring. The magnums in particular are single bottles, and in my experience they are gone within hours of an email like this one.

If you have never had Chetillons, start with the Cuvee de Reserve and see why people talk about this village the way they do. If you already know, you know what the magnums are worth.

Cheers,