n.v. Amaury Beaufort, Blanc de Noirs XX, Brut Nature Champagne, Les Jardins de la Porte de Troyes, Bar-sur-Seine, France.
The beautifully structured and poised Amaury Beaufort Blanc de Noirs Brut Nature, handcrafted from a 2022 base of 100% Pinot Noir, shows off a lovely concentrated, but exciting palate of yeasty goodness with lemony citrus, apple, quince and white cherry fruits, along subtle florals, brioche, hazelnut and chalky stones. This non dosage Champagne is briskly dry, with delicate saline and mineral notes, comes from 30 year old organic vines in Neuville-Sur-Seine set on pure Kimmeridgian limestone soils, which gives this stuff its terroir and pedigreed character. This particular bottling, disgorged in October 2024, which saw close to 11 months in a combination of 420L barrels and 15 hL foudres, got a full 15 months on the lees and had zero sulfur added and zero dosage, hence the Brut Nature on the label. I hadn’t had any of this Amaury Beaufort before, again I was turned on to this micro grower producer by my friend and Champagne expert Alex Lallos of No Limit Fine Wine, who shared this one with me. There’s loads of personality, charm and depth here, it went really well with a variety of bites and stayed vital and vigorous in the glass with an excellent balance between luxuriousness and energy, making for a thrilling and rewarding Champagne.
Champagne Amaury Beaufort is a pretty new project, based in Aube, with Amaury, who has been working in wine since 2003, produced his first vintage under his own label in just 2018. The estate farms a tiny 1 Hectare of vines in Polisy which is called “Le Jardinot ” all by himself, as everything is passionate hand done from vines to bottle here. According to Thatcher’s Wine, who imports these Amaury Beaufort Champagnes, Amaury’s vinification techniques, on most of the efforts here, are more similar to Burgundy than classic Champagne with a gentle whole cluster pressing of the juice to oak barrels with the fermentation beginning in large oak (15hl oval) casks. The new barrels here are all treated with a light steaming to remove the concentration of the toasty oak flavors, to allow more transparency and elegance to shine through, as seen here in the Brut Nature Blanc de Noirs. Amaury, interestingly doesn’t do the batonnage by hand, rather just the the shape of his casks allows for a natural stirring of the lees. Post fermentation the wine is then transferred to demi-muids for settling and further aging and the elevage is rather long and changes vintage to vintage to best showcase the quality of the individual year. This is definitely right up my own alley, style wise, as I always prefer drier Extra Bruts and non dosage bubblies and really loved this Amaury Beaufort offering, which I highly recommend to Champagne enthusiasts.
($120 Est.) 95 Points, grapelive