First taste: Champagne Henriot Cuvée Hemera 2008

Champagne Henriot is a gemstone; a medium sized house producing just under a million bottles per year, with some magnificent vineyards across the region, many of them in bijou grand and premier cru sites.

With a heritage dating back to 1808, and an impressive manor house to show off in Pierry, Henriot boasts an impressive range, which starts with the Brut Souverain non-vintage, currently built around a 2016 base.

Henriot also now has an extremely articulate and passionate chef de caves in Alice Tétienne, born and bred in Champagne and only three years into the job.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for Henriot’s Cuvée Hemera 2008, 2006 and 2005

At the top of the Henriot tree is Cuvée Hemera. The 2008 is its third outing under this name, known previously as Cuvée des Enchanteleurs and before that as Cuvée Baccarat, so it is a concept with a distinguished pedigree.

Cuvée Hemera is always made up of the six grands crus that have played the most important part in the house’s history and, rather unusually, it is always divided equally between these components, regardless of the vicissitudes of the vintage in question.

Tétienne is pithy in her description of this make up: ‘Verzy provides the foundations, Verzenay offers elegance, Mailly reinforces expression, Chouilly gives generosity, Avize reveals tension and Le Mesnil-sur-Oger delivers brilliance’.

The wine has rested for over 12 years on its lees and follows the Henriot template of avoiding the use of oak and of always going through malolactic fermentation.

2008, for its part, is shaping up to be one of the great Champagne vintages. After a cool and often wet start, the season just got better and better, never too hot and never threatened by excesses of rain or frost. Perfect tension between acidity and sugar, in other words, with a long growing season harnessing ever-increasing complexity.

Alice jokes that the powerful 2005, tasted alongside the new 2008 release, resembles a rugby player, but the 2008 is more like a marathon runner. One for the longer term, it seems, and just getting into its stride. Power and elegance entwine perfectly, with a little patience required as it blossoms.

Henriot has recently forged a joint venture with one of France’s richest men, François Pinault, whose Artémis Group also controls Château Latour among others, and has recently taken a minority stake in Champagne Jacquesson.

When asked whether things will change as a result, she is adamant that nothing will, that quality will always be the watchword, and that the attention to detail so manifestly evident in the 2008 Hemera will continue to inform the Henriot range, which is clearly enjoying a golden period in deference to Hemera’s eponymous Greek goddess of luminosity.

The Cuvée Hemera 2008 will retail from £140 in the UK.

Tasting notes and scores for all three vintages of Henriot’s Cuvée Hemera:

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