Jacques Selosse Substance Champagne Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs Brut 750ml

Each year only about a fifth of the tank is bottled, and the newest harvest ends up as roughly five per cent of what is in the glass.

Substance is the one wine in the Selosse range run as a solera. Kinoshita International, the domaine's importer in Japan since June 1993, describes the chain: the year after harvest the Avize Chardonnay moves from small casks into a 4,000-litre wooden cask on its lees, the next year it is racked into a 4,300-litre stainless tank, and each year 22 per cent of that tank is drawn off for bottling and refilled from the cask behind it. Kinoshita says the solera holds wine back to the 1984 harvest; the Wine Advocate dates its creation to 1986. Either way, the current base wine, per the Wine Advocate's December 2024 report, is only about 4.8 per cent of the final blend.

The fruit comes from Avize, the Grand Cru village where the Selosse family farms 8.3 hectares in 54 parcels, with vines planted as far back as 1922 and an average age above 55 years. Earlier releases drew on two lieux-dits, Le Mont de Cramant and Les Chantereines; Guillaume Selosse, beside his father Anselme since 2012, now selects plots across the village, south-, east- or north-facing, according to the balance he wants. The domaine's own words on the cellar: 'at vinification we must add nothing; 100 per cent of the identity is in the grape juice; by doing too much we mask and scratch, by not doing enough we destroy.' Base wines ferment in 228- and 400-litre casks, one tenth new, on native yeasts.

Bottles shipped from 2022 carry a WID chip under the back label, which lets a buyer read the bottle's route from the cellar on a phone. The importer lists 12.5 per cent alcohol.

In the glass

The Wine Advocate (December 2024, 99 points, as quoted by K&L) found orange zest, spice, beeswax, toasted hazelnut and dried fig, a full-bodied, vinous palate that is nonetheless searingly chalky, and reports Guillaume Selosse's explanation that the oxidative transfers free the wine from fruit in the classic sense and leave chalky extract. Antonio Galloni (Vinous, June 2023, 96, as quoted by K&L) found lemon confit, dried flowers, chamomile and mint in a gently evolved, almost delicate edition. Editions differ; which note fits your bottle depends on when it was disgorged.

When to open

Jeb Dunnuck (December 2024, as quoted by K&L) expects the current release to drink well now and over the coming twenty years. Our suggestion: 10–12 °C, a white-wine glass, an hour open.

At the table

Our suggestion, not the domaine's: aged Comté, roast chicken with morels, or a sushi counter, where its sherry-like depth sits well.

Quick facts

Provenance

Sourced from the Japanese importer.

Sources: Domaine Jacques Selosse; Kinoshita International (Japanese importer); Wine Advocate (Dec 2024) and Vinous (A. Galloni, Jun 2023) and Jeb Dunnuck, as quoted by K&L Wine Merchants