De Saint Gall
Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru Brut Millesime
Champagne
2012

The producer

Known as one of the best sources of consistent Chardonnay-based wines, in Champagne, the De Saint Gall is made up of more than 2,000 workers, wine growers and winemakers from 15 cooperatives all sharing the same goal, to make great, sound, and reliable champagnes, respecting tradition but also exploring new techniques where relevant. Grapes are sourced from premier and grand cru vineyards in the three main regions of the Champagne region, Vallee de la Marne, Montagne de Reims, and Cote de Blancs. The De Saint Gall style is always pure and elegant, with pronounced minerality, freshness and intensity.

The wine

De Saint Gall’s Blanc de Blancs is made entirely from the Chardonnay grape, sourced from premier and grand cru villages in the Cote de Blancs.  It is a delicate and minerally fresh wine with white flowers and crisp lemon aromas, accentuated by juicy green orchard fruit notes. Production is entirely in neutral vessels, which preserves the fruit driven and lively profile.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.