The 2016 Brut Cuvée Spéciale Les Chétillons is an explosive, heady wine. It is, to me, a quintessentially modern Chétillons that offers plenty of Mesnil energy, yet also has more than enough fruit to avoid any feeling of the austerity that once characterized these wines. Crushed rocks, slate, mint, lemon peel and white flowers are all beautifully delineated throughout. The decision to delay the release of this wine by a year going forward seems very well judged. Today, the 2016 is showing so much better than it did last year. Dosage is 4 grams per liter. Disgorged: July 2023. (AG)

This enticing Champagne glides across the palate with the cool poise of Grace Kelly on the big screen, showing finesse and elegant detail but also a sense of vitality that makes it hard to stop sipping. Creamy in texture, this is driven by chiseled acidity, which makes a finely knit frame for flavors of ripe green apple, crunchy white peach, blanched almond, fleur de sel and blood orange pith as they expand on the palate and the lasting finish. Drink now through 2036. *Highly Recommended* (AN)

Rodolphe Péters' most celebrated cuvée is a blend of three parts of the Chétillon vineyard in Le Mesnil, embodying the village's glacial, tense and exacting Chardonnay. It's a cuvée that requires some patience, although the relatively forward 2016 vintage is already revving up with intense dried citrus, plum and orange cream, showing all the acceleration and build on the palate that this forceful cuvée, long one of the Côte des Blanc's most impressive parcellaire wines, makes its own. It may not be the purest, most svelte vintage, but 2016's compact energy and structure will serve this wine very well over the next two decades. (TH)