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Wine Description
The Story
This wine is produced from various regions, namely 45% of Avize, 40% of Mesnil sur Oger, 8% from Villers-Marmery and 7% of Cramant, Oger and Chouilly.
This wine pleases the eye with its clear robe of bronze highlights, typical of the Chardonnay vintage, and with its dense and smooth effervescence. Delicate and elegant to the nose, this Blanc de Blancs offers a unique aroma, well balanced between elegance, liveliness, minerality and pleasant hints of white flowers and mirabelles. The attack is frank and lively. Then, the wine is elegant to the palate, in perfect harmony with the aromas revealed to the nose. The palate is powerful as well as ripe. A happy mixture of ripe white fruits and pleasant notes of delicate citrus. The finish is expressively pure, with aromas nicely persistent and a subtle hint of brioche. The wine has an interesting cellaring potential.
This Brut Blanc de Blancs, excellent as appetiser, offers a good enough structure to be served with fishes such as Bass, Salmon, Saint-Pierre or even a Saint-Jacques carpaccio or a simple Tuna tartar; could also be grilled or served with a mousseline sauce. This wine could also be the perfect complement of a steamed Sea Bream served on ginger and onions.
Vintage 2013
The Champagne harvest 2013– late, but potentially outstanding
It has been another strange year for Champagne, starting with a cold, wet winter, followed by a gloomy, chilly spring with a lot of rain. Vine development started two weeks behind the ten-year average, and never made up for that lost time.
Along the way came a hot dry summer, boosting fruit quality thanks to the most sunshine ever recorded in Champagne in July and August.
Rain came from 6 September onwards, which helped to fatten the berries - then fortunately stopped in time to allow good conditions for final ripening. Considering the lateness of the harvest, the weather this year was exceptionally good – almost summer-like with unusually warm temperatures and sunshine, and a wind from the east to help keep the grapes healthy.
It was a year of big differences in the timing of the harvest, with picking in the most precocious plots starting on 24 September and in the slower-ripening areas on 9 October. Most plots commenced harvesting in the first days of October – the latest start date seen in Champagne for two decades.
Bearing in mind the economic situation, Champagne's governing body has set the yield limit at 10,000 kilos per hectare. Most crus should achieve this yield, excepting only a few that were partially affected by millerandage (shot berries), hailstorms and botrytis.
An average potential alcohol of nearly 10% ABV and good acidity averaging around 8.5g H2SO4 per litre together suggest a promising balance for the eventual wine. The Champenois are already drawing favourable comparisons with the vintages of 1983, 1988 and 1998 – these too being the product of late harvests.