Global demand for top quality vintage Champagne has shot up over the last 12 to 18 months and this has even started to spread to grower Champagnes. Stocks with some of the producers we deal with have come under considerable pressure, everything has been exacerbated by a few vintages with lower yields and lower volumes of even non-vintage Champagnes from the major houses. Fortunately, we enjoy strong relationships with a handful of outstanding growers, and it is here that we have focused our attention since Atlas was founded in 2010, over and above the wines produced by the Grande Marques.
To say the Champagnes of de Sousa are avidly followed by Atlas clients might be understatement. Two cuvées in particular have developed something of a cult-like following with our clients, namely the Mycorhize and the 3A – both invariably sell out almost as soon as we have offered them. Newer to the range is the Umami Extra Brut from the highly rated 2012 vintage, which again sold out in a matter of hours when we first offered it back in November last year. For this offer, we have managed to secure a few more cases of the stunning 2012 Umami, as well as the new releases of the ever-popular Mycorhize and 3A.
Some background
Champagne critic Peter Liem once commented; ‘It’s no accident that De Sousa is found in many of France’s best restaurants'...indeed it was at a restaurant that I was first introduced to this estate. More recently, William Kelley commented on robertparker.com, when praising the first release of Umami, that ‘this is a brilliant effort from a producer that deserves to be much better known among Anglophone wine lovers.’
The de Sousa family (of Portuguese descent) have been in Avize for three generations and the house of de Sousa & Fils was founded in 1986 by Erick and Michelle. The scale is modest; there are just 9.5 hectares, and production barely exceeds 6,000 cases from their 42 different vineyard parcels across the villages of Avize, Aÿ, Cramant, Chouilly, Le Mesnil sur Oger and Oger. The vast majority of their vines are low yielding, given they were planted more than 45 years ago, and they have cultivated their vineyards organically since 1989. In 1999, De Sousa converted to biodynamic viticulture which – if anything – has lowered yields even further. You quickly get the impression that everything at de Sousa is about quality over quantity.
These three Champagnes are truly exceptional and should easily displace non-vintage Grande Marques from your cellar, portfolio, Eurocaves and fridges. I know this is one of my stock phrases, but I struggle to understand why there is a need to pay up for a lesser Champagne, made in near industrial quantities, sourced from Premier rather than Grand Cru vineyards, when such great growers Champagnes are available. I am pleased to say a good number of our clients have woken up to this and follow the wines of several of the growers with whom we work, having been convinced by the quality in the bottle.