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Val de Mer by Patrick Piuze, Sparkling Rosé, Brut Nature

Burgundy, France NV (750mL)
$22.00
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Val de Mer by Patrick Piuze, Sparkling Rosé, Brut Nature

If you have the space, even if it’s just a cool corner of your garage, we highly recommend grabbing a case of this stunning sparkling rosé from super-star Chablis vintner Patrick Piuze. If you love Champagne, and would drink it more often if it weren’t so pricy, this is your wine – a Champagne-quality sparkler (truly as close to the genuine article as you can possibly get) at less than half the typical Champagne price.
This is the ‘way-better-than-necessary’ wedding wine. It’s the ‘affordable but respectable’ gift. Or maybe it’s just your new, next-level house wine to drink often. In a blind tasting, this would fool most professionals, including myself, to be true Champagne. At just over $20 per bottle, this is very close to being the greatest value sparkling wine on earth.
For Patrick Piuze, in fact, it has become the latter. He founded his eponymous label in Chablis in 2008 and has been widely touted as a rising star in this northernmost outpost of Burgundy. But when he’s not drinking local, his (and his wife’s) drink of choice has long been Champagne. As fate would have it, he was approached by a Champagne producer, François Moutard, who had purchased property in Chablis and was looking for consultation. Piuze and Moutard ended up partnering in a new venture, Val de Mer, which produces not only Chablis wines but méthode traditionelle (‘Champagne-method’) sparklers from vineyards in and around the village of Tonnerre, which is about 10 miles from Chablis. That is one way to support a serious Champagne habit without going broke: make it yourself!

As with Piuze’s meticulously crafted Chablis wines, the Val de Mer sparklers made from both estate-grown grapes as well as fruit purchased from a broad network of growers – with whom Piuze enjoys long-standing, trusting relationships. This wine is 100% Pinot Noir from 25-year-old vines in Tonnerre, where the soils are the limestone-rich clays typical of Chablis. Although Piuze does not use the Crémant de Bourgogne AOC on the label of this wine, Val de Mer is effectively a Crémant de Bourgogne, with all that this moniker implies – namely, that the wine is made in the same manner as Champagne, with the same grape(s), from an equally great and storied terroir.

All of which is readily evident in the glass: this wine is aged on its ‘lees’ (the spent yeast cells that remain after its second fermentation in bottle) for about 13 months, and that biscuity, bready yeast quality lends a nice creamy note to the wine. There’s great palate weight, density and persistence, and a firm, chalky minerality that speaks to the Kimmeridgian limestone of Chablis (soil that closely resembles that of Champagne, which is only 200 kilometers north!). 

If I were blind-tasting this wine, I’d personally peg this Rosé Champagne based on its firm creamy yet bright wild berry fruit, Rose petals, slight oyster shell accents, and creamy palate weight. It is mind-blowing how much this stuff over-delivers, and I don’t just want it as an apéritif, I want it with some food! Ditch the flutes and serve this well-chilled in some regular white wine glasses, alongside some cheeses, Serrano ham, and olives. Or, take your Sunday afternoon a step further and pair it with this delicious Salmon Nicoise recipe.
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Country
France
Region
Burgundy
Sub-Region
FranceChablis
Soil
Limestone
Farming
Sustainable
Blend
Pinot Noir
Alcohol
12.0
OAK
None

France

Bourgogne

Beaujolais

Enjoying the greatest wines of Beaujolais starts, as it usually does, with the lay of the land. In Beaujolais, 10 localities have been given their own AOC (Appellation of Controlled Origin) designation. They are: Saint Amour; Juliénas; Chénas; Moulin-à Vent; Fleurie; Chiroubles; Morgon; Régnié; Côte de Brouilly; and Brouilly.

Southwestern France

Bordeaux

Bordeaux surrounds two rivers, the Dordogne and Garonne, which intersect north of the city of Bordeaux to form the Gironde Estuary, which empties into the Atlantic Ocean. The region is at the 45th parallel (California’s Napa Valley is at the38th), with a mild, Atlantic-influenced climate enabling the maturation of late-ripening varieties.

Central France

Loire Valley

The Loire is France’s longest river (634 miles), originating in the southerly Cévennes Mountains, flowing north towards Paris, then curving westward and emptying into the Atlantic Ocean near Nantes. The Loire and its tributaries cover a huge swath of central France, with most of the wine appellations on an east-west stretch at47 degrees north (the same latitude as Burgundy).

Northeastern France

Alsace

Alsace, in Northeastern France, is one of the most geologically diverse wine regions in the world, with vineyards running from the foothills of theVosges Mountains down to the Rhine River Valley below.

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