Jacques Selosse Millesime 2008 Extra Brut

The 2008 Extra-Brut Millésime is soon due for release, and I’m a little afraid to fan the flames of what is sure to be insatiable demand with a laudatory review. But such reservations notwithstanding, I’m obliged to report that the wine meets and indeed surpasses the lofty expectations that Selosse’s admirers will have surely have formed for it. Disgorged in January 2020, this bottle soared from the glass with scents of citrus oil, buttery pastry, candied peel, crisp orchard fruit, toasted pecans, iodine and smoke. Full-bodied, deep and concentrated, it’s immensely layered and intensely vinous, with a tightly wound core, racy acids and a long, pungently saline finish. “If the 2009 is a Catholic,” observes Selosse, “the 2008 is a Protestant”—though a Protestant, I’m tempted to add, who is evidently not entirely immune to the pleasures of the flesh.