2013 Amour de Deutz

A serious fizz with deeply carved contours of flavour and structure. More smoke-and-stones minerality than most of the 20-odd sparkling wines (mostly champagne) that I’m tasting today. Salted lemons, lemon marmalade. Firm and classic and fabulous.

Harvested in October, the 2013 Amour de Deutz—disgorged in September 2022 with a dosage of seven grams per liter—has evolved beautifully with additional post-disgorgement maturation. Based heavily on the Côte des Blancs fruit, it offers a profound bouquet of candied lemon, peach, pear, roasted pineapple and gooseberry layered with roasted cacao bean and smoky accents that underscore its subtly reductive signature. These olfactory impressions transition seamlessly onto the medium- to full-bodied palate, which is unusually generous in context of the vintage: fleshy, multidimensional and with a sweet fruit core enlivened with pinpoint mousse. This Blanc de Blancs culminates in a lingering, toasty finish, rendering it irresistibly approachable even at this early stage.

Disgorged in May 2022 and crafted from Chardonnay sourced in the commune of Avize (39%), Oger (24%), Mesnil-sur-Oger (22%), Vertus (10%) and both Villers-Marmery and Trépail (5%), the 2013 Brut Millésimé Amour de Deutz offers aromas of lemon oil, kumquat, herbs and ripe orchard fruit. Medium to full-bodied, precise and crystalline, it has a good core and an elegant mousse, concluding with a mouthwatering, ethereal finish. This is a fine, elegant rendition of Amour de Deutz.