Louis Brochet Les Plantes 2018

Les Plantes 2018 is the Chardonnay counterpoint within a domaine whose vineyard is otherwise strongly weighted towards Pinot Noir. Louis Brochet works 13 hectares across around 50 parcels in Écueil and neighbouring villages, with Pinot Noir accounting for roughly three-quarters of the estate. Against that background, a 100% Chardonnay parcel wine has a particularly clear role. For this 2018 release, the fruit comes from two sites: Les Vouagnes in Écueil and Mont Benoit in Villers-aux-Nœuds. The current release information lists just 1,800 numbered bottles, making this a deliberately small production rather than a broad house cuvée. Vinification is described as primarily in temperature-controlled tank, with some oak, followed by more than four years in the cellar. That combination makes Les Plantes useful for buyers who want to understand Louis Brochet beyond the estate’s Pinot Noir-led core blends. It is not simply a Blanc de Blancs-style alternative inserted into the range; it belongs to the Signature wines, where specific grapes and sites are isolated rather than absorbed into a multi-parcel blend. The best way to approach it is comparatively. La Jacquessonne provides the Meunier reference, while Les Chaillots is the Pinot Noir counterpart. Les Plantes completes that grape-by-grape view through Chardonnay. Tasted alongside either of those wines, it shows how the Brochet family uses the parcel series to explore contrasts within a vineyard base that would otherwise be easy to describe only through Pinot Noir. The exact year matters. The estate’s current technical material describes specific 2018 and 2019 releases, and the production volume, cellar treatment and ageing should be read as belonging to the bottle in front of you rather than as permanent specifications for every future Les Plantes. For a buyer already familiar with Brut Héritage or Réserve Perpétuelle, Les Plantes 2018 is therefore the logical step into the domaine’s more detailed side: a small-volume, 100% Chardonnay release from two named sites, with enough cellar time to be treated as a specific vintage expression rather than a generic extension of the house range.