Ployez-Jacquemart Vintage Extra-Brut Blanc de Noirs 2018

Ployez-Jacquemart Vintage Extra-Brut Blanc de Noirs 2018 shows the darker-grape side of a small family house whose identity is shaped as much by cellar discipline as by vineyard source. Ployez-Jacquemart is based in Ludes Premier Cru, where Laurence Ployez now leads the cellar of a house founded in 1930. The 2018 Blanc de Noirs is currently presented as an equal blend of Pinot Noir and Meunier. The Pinot Noir comes from Mailly Grand Cru and the Meunier from Ludes Premier Cru, giving the wine a clear two-origin structure rather than a broad regional assemblage. Extended cellar ageing and low dosage place it firmly within the house’s long-standing technical style. That matters because Ployez-Jacquemart is unusually coherent in the way it handles maturation. Low dosage is a recurring theme across the range, barrel fermentation is used selectively, and malolactic fermentation may be blocked where the house wants to preserve acidity. Many wines are also aged sur pointe, allowing long bottle maturation before disgorgement while reducing prolonged contact with settled yeast. Within the portfolio, the 2018 Blanc de Noirs is the natural choice for buyers who want to move away from the Chardonnay-led side of the house. Extra Quality Brut gives the broadest introduction, Extra Quality Blanc de Blancs provides the white-grape reference, and this cuvée shifts the focus squarely to Pinot Noir and Meunier. For anyone interested in how origin and cellar handling combine, this is an especially useful bottle. The vintage is explicit, the two grapes are clearly balanced, the villages are identified and the Extra-Brut positioning keeps the release firmly in Ployez-Jacquemart’s restrained house idiom. It is a serious, well-defined step deeper into the range without moving all the way to the rarer estate-parcel or long-aged prestige wines.