My inaugural rosé de saignée Champagne was a bottle of Marie-Copinet, Mademoiselle Victoire a few years back. To be perfectly candid, it was an affair nothing short of a baptism. My vows were simple enough: if I see a saignée Champagne in the shop or on the menu, it’s coming home with me. And I’ve stuck to it.

You can imagine my feigned dismay, and my wallets very real groans of disapproval, when a wine bar specializing in all things bubbly opened up shop not a block from my door.

So here we are. A cold Saturday night in January, in a town pressed up against the Chartreuse range, cozied up in a wine bar close enough to my 17th century apartment that I can connect to my wifi. Go figure. Another saignée Champagne popped, and my first as an official French resident!

The lady in question? Lequeux-Mercier Extra Brut. 100% Pinot Noir from 2013 base wine.

A good rosé de saignée Champagne is a continuously unfolding sensory drama. The color alone is telling – carnal, deep, and disarmingly pure. It has an expressive nose and a rich palate, and is given life by soft, energetic bubbles. Blood orange, rose petals, crushed berries, almonds, and white chocolate, a touch of biscuit, gravel. With time in the glass, the savory notes gain more prominence – white truffle and herbs.

It’s perhaps a bit unpolished, a bit chaotic, as if it trips from one aroma to the next like a clumsy, aspiring artist. Nothing that more time in the bottle can’t solve, of course. But that’s how I like it. Powerful and seductive, with just the right amount of grace and finesse to not scare you away.