The Wine That Was Waaaaay Better Than I Thought It Was (And I Loved It to Begin With)

I did not have a chance to experience this wine at the estate as you taste and spendmaybe 5-15 minutes with each wine after it has been opened. The Demets wines need 30-45 minutes to really open and show their stuff.

As soon as the wines had been properly rested after this spring ship I started sending emails to find out what people thought of the wines. I was particularly curious about Marie Demets as I shipped four different wines from them. I kept hearing about the Rose. So I popped a bottle. For 45 minutes it was the excellent, precise wine I remember with vivid layered fruit and that vinous quality you get out of saignee rose Champagne. Then as I entered the 46th minute in this wines evolution it just went turbo on me. It got so dense and layered and just had tremendous weight.  This is not a light aperitif; the power and concentration really showed through. Yes it is elegant but at the end of the day that is not what this wine is about; it is about sheer brute force and complexity of the gorgeous Pinot Fruit that the Aube is known for. Think Vosne village with bubbles and you're getting there. I am thrilled to be able to offer this sick wine for as little as $34.99 on the 4-pack. Highway robbery for a rose of this quality.  You'd be crazy to have this with a steak but you actually could - it is powerful enough to hold up to one.
 
I've always loved Rose Champagne but, like with most Champagne, the price to quality ratio is painfully high. Fortunately, because I'm buying direct from the estate and cutting out 2 middlemen, I am able to offer the NV Marie Demets Rose "Cuvee Rubis" for as little as $34.99 on a 4-pack which in my mind is the best deal in the market for fine grower Rose Champagne today.

Marie Demets is in the very small town of Guy-Sur-Seine where the taxidermist is just as important as the Champagne producers (he is even on the signs with all the Champagne producers). They used to sell grapes to Bollinger and formed the estate in 1987 when Marie Brement married Alain Demets. Pierre, and his father Alain run the show now. Alain looks a bit like Jean Gabin and has an old world charm that no one can resist. Their wines are as charming as they are.

The vineyards are different geologically from the vineyards up north. They are in the area that connects Sancerre to Pouilly-Fume near Chablis. Kimmeridgean overload in the ground there which really comes through aromatically and on the palate.

The wine is a Saignee, which means there is a small amount of skin contact while the juice is bled off, leading to a darker color and more vivid fruit aromas and flavors. The nose screams Pinot Noir with its overflowing red berry fruit. The blend is 50/50 Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, so the requisite Chardonnay yeastiness is there along with the fruit basket quality of the Pinot Noir. The wine is juicy like you will not believe. Amazingly pure, clean and precise with incredible vivid fruit flavors. It has a juicy quality I rarely see in rose Champagne. It's like a 1er Cru Red Burgundy from 2010 yet with bubbles. It is indeed a stunner and for $32.99 on a 12-pack easily falls into the top 5 deals in the short history of Fass Selections.

If you serve Champagne at parties, this is a great wine to buy in bulk, as it absolutely blows away the normal mediocre, mass-produced under $40 options on the market.

These will arrive in late Fall-Winter.

NV Marie Demets Rose - $37.99 ($139.96 4-pack)