Ambonnay is holy ground for Champagne. Éric Rodez is making some of our favorite expressions of this Grand Cru.
When you ask Champagne fanatics about the greatest Grand Crus, the answer is always the same: Mesnil, Cramant, Äy, Verzenay, and Ambonnay.
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However, Rodez's work in a renowned terroir is only half of the story. Another important piece is his experience working with Krug.
The Krug connection feels very important. Most immediately, it comes across in the way that Rodez's wines combine power, depth, and refinement. Like Krug, in Rodez's Champagnes you get a very adept use of wood.
The 2013 Les Beurys has an incredible amount of nuance, elegance, and refined texture. There's a really nice cut to the wine that pulls everything into an inviting total package. Finding this amount of harmony, delicacy, and class is very rare.
We love the 2013 vintage's finesse, subtlety, and incredible purity. It is among our favorite Champagne vintages. It was a cool, throw-back vintage with many growers harvesting in October, which is very late by recent standards. The vintage produced Champagnes of riveting clarity and incredible length.
The style of Les Beurys dovetailed beautifully with the 2013 vintage. Les Beurys is an east-facing vineyard with a very thin layer of topsoil over chalk. It also delivers incredible precision, elegance, and chalky tension. It's a thrilling bottle of Champagne and all the more so in this vintage.
The wine really gives you a sense of what a skillful winemaker Rodez is. He works very hard to render his Pinot based champagnes with presence and complexity along with levity and fine-ness. This is a don't miss bottle.
To order, email offers@crushwineco.com or call the store at (212) 980-9463.
Joe Salamone
Wine Buyer
Crush Wine & Spirits
William Kelley, The Wine Advocate: "Disgorged in April 2020 with three grams per liter dosage, the 2013 Brut Blanc de Noirs Grand Cru Les Beurys wafts from the glass with aromas of apricot, white flowers, cherries and yellow plums, framed by a very discreet patina from its élevage in oak barrels. Medium to full-bodied, satiny and vinous, with incisive acids, fine concentration and a delicate mousse, it concludes with a long, penetrating finish. Like most of these releases, it's quite expressive despite its very recent disgorgement, but I can only think it will nonetheless reward some more time on cork."