First taste: Charles Heidsieck Brut Millésimé 2013

Today’s Champagne cellar masters have their heads in their wineries but their feet, increasingly, on the move as they are pulled from one corner of the globe to the next, acting as the creative faces of their maison.

After the departure of Cyril Brun at the start of this year, it was Elise Losfelt, formerly of Moët & Chandon, who took on the role of cellar master at Charles Heidsieck, long one of the region’s best-regarded medium-sized houses. With this year’s blending process complete, Losfelt made her first appearance in London to introduce two new vintages – the brut millésimé 2013, and the brut millésimé rosé 2012.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for the new Charles Heidsieck vintages

Some have called 2013 the last pre-climate change vintage on the basis that the harvest stretched into late September (and in some cases even October). Acidities were high and the wines have a cool, long-lived profile.

Losfelt feels that Thierry Roset, cellar master at the time, ‘stretched the expression’ of the vintage releases, picking ingredients that reinforced the nature of the vintage, rather than trying to counterbalance it. The 2012, for example, magnifies the maturity and ripeness of the year by using Pinot Noir from warm, south-facing Ambonnay and Chardonnay from generous Vertus. The 2013, though, trades on Aÿ and Tauxières for Pinot Noir and Le Mesnil for Chardonnay – villages known for intensity and longevity.

Some have compared 2013 to 2008, but Losfelt was keen to point out the differences: ‘I’ve already seen the way 2013 is evolving – it’s a slow-opening flower’, she says. ‘What I feel today in the 2008 is the straight acidity, but there is a mellowness surrounding it. Will 2013 evolve this way? I’m not entirely sure, but I feel like the freshness of 2013 is not only based on the acidity, but on the structure, on the bitterness, on something else…it has a super dense heart.’

The rosé is made by an addition of around 9% red wine to the same blend used for the white. The wines are strikingly different, though. Losfelt pointed out this could be due to the fact that the red wine can bring ‘some youth if your wine is gourmand and mellow; bitterness, freshness, tannin, chalkiness.’

For a house whose recent reputation has been built as much on the overperformance of the non-vintage as the vintage wines, the 2013 looks like a fine midpoint between the dramatic energy and longevity of the 2008s and the more generous 2012s.

Charles Heidsieck’s vintages have moved up in price lately towards what used to be, until fairly recently, prestige cuvée territory. On the evidence of the 2013, though, it is a move well justified.

The brut millésimé 2013 retails in the UK for £98, while the rosé 2012 retails for £140.

Charles Heidsieck’s new vintages tasted and rated:

Below are Tom Hewson’s tasting notes and scores for the two new wines, plus back vintages of both the brut millésimé and brut millésimé rosé tasted alongside.

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