This small grower estate has roots stretching back to the 1800s, but like so many récoltant-manipulant producers scattered throughout Champagne, Duménil has remained relatively unknown in the American market. When its importer decided to move on, we tasted the wines for the first time.
And immediately wondered where they'd been hiding.
Today, Duménil is led by Frédérique Duménil, who unexpectedly took charge of her family's estate at just 21 years old in 2000 after her father became ill. Alongside her husband, who handles much of the viticulture, Frédérique has continued a family story that includes one particularly important decision made more than half a century ago.
That decision involved Chardonnay.
The family's vineyards are centered around Chigny-les-Roses in the Montagne de Reims, an area traditionally associated with Pinot varieties. Frédérique's grandmother, Cécile, however, loved vintage Champagne and believed Chardonnay could give their wines additional longevity.
So in 1969, when Chardonnay was hardly the obvious choice for the area, she planted it anyway.
It worked.
Those plantings became an important part of the estate's identity and today help define the 2015 Duménil Vintage Brut.
The blend is 60% Chardonnay, 20% Pinot Meunier and 20% Pinot Noir, sourced from cooler north-facing slopes. That's particularly important in a warm, sunny vintage like 2015, where cooler exposures helped preserve the acidity, balance and structure necessary for serious Champagne.
And this wasn't rushed out the cellar door.
The 2015 spent more than six years aging on its lees before disgorgement in 2022, followed by several additional years in bottle. Today, at roughly 11 years from vintage, it's drinking beautifully.
There's a gorgeous green-gold color followed by bright stone fruit, citrus, subtle tropical notes and wonderful energy. Despite the extended aging, this isn't an excessively doughy or brioche-heavy Champagne. There's impressive clarity and precision, with tangy fruit, freshness and enough structure to suggest Cécile's Chardonnay experiment accomplished exactly what she hoped it would.
Then there's the price.
Vintage Champagne has become expensive. $85 to $100+ is increasingly normal, while this bottle would ordinarily represent excellent value even at its roughly $70 retail price.
Our price?
$34.98.
For an 11-year-old, vintage-dated grower Champagne with six-plus years on the lees, that's ridiculous.
And there are only 180 bottles.
Sometimes somebody else's decision to move on becomes our opportunity.
This video features a detailed review of a 2015 vintage Brut from Champagne du Menil, a grower Champagne. The presenter highlights the producer's unique history of planting Chardonnay in a Meunier-dominant region and emphasizes the wine's exceptional value, precision, and aging potential, offering it at a significant discount due to a change in importation.
This doesn't happen too often in Introductory Closeout. Well, not really. There's a long
story here. There's always a story here. But, you know, introductory to us, shall we say.
This is a property that we had not seen before. This is Champagne du Menil. Champagne's a big
place. Huge. And there, for all the big marks, for all the marchandons and those types of guys,
there is a slew of what we call the récoltantes minipulantes, grower champagnes. And there's so
many more than what we think there are. You know, in America, there's a certain number of those
growers that have made their way here and are working the market and are being part of the
market. A very small percentage. You know, all these growers, champagnes make up like
4% of the market or something crazy, like crazy number. But there's a lot that we don't know.
And, you know, the funny thing is we came across this producer simply because the folks who had
imported it were kind of like, you know, we're kind of done with these guys. We're kind of moving
on. It's like, dude, we haven't even seen them. You know, it was getting back to working the
market, getting brands out there, having presence, etc. And sometimes it just doesn't work out. And
in this case, we got a delicious. It just didn't work out. Now, Champagne du Menil, been around
for a while, 1800s. And the current proprietor, proprietress, is Frédérique du Menil. And she
actually had to take the reins over when she was 21 years old. In the year 2000, she was actually
asked to take charge of the property, very young, because her father had taken somewhat ill,
I guess. And she was thrust into the position straight away. So it's ladies first. It's her
and her husband does a lot of the viticulture and her daughters look ready to take over.
And fact of the matter is this is just great, great grower Champagne, primarily from an area
called Chigny-les-Roses, which is we're in the Montagne de Rheims here. I didn't say it perfectly,
I know. But that's where we are. And I said it reasonably close. And here it's usually Pinot
Meunier country. OK, some of the top producers here, guys like Jay LaSalle and Cartier, Ace of
Bades, you know, comes from this area. A lot of great Meunier here. But there's a little twist
here with today's wine that we'll get into. And let's get into it straight away. First,
look at the color. This is a 2015, by the way, 11 years old. Look at the color. Beautiful. Still
a pop. I'm going to drink some Champagne as I talk about the wine. So anyway, Frédérique's
grandmother, Cécile, decided to plant Chardonnay because she loved vintage Champagne. She loved the
ageability of vintage Champagne. And her concern back in the late 60s, early 70s, was that the
Meunier grown on her property would not have the ability to age as well, which is kind of documented.
It's kind of true. There's a few guys doing it differently nowadays. But back in the old days,
Meunier was this fun, juicy, blending, great variety, kind of what made Veuve Clicquot so
delicious, and so forth and so on. So she, on a whim, well, not on a whim, her son, Michel,
Frédérique's dad, kind of said, hey, maybe you should put some Chardonnay in the ground. But
we can't put Chardonnay here. It's Pinot Meunier country. But I love vintage Champagne. And
Chardonnay is what makes vintage Champagne age so well. So let's try. So in 1969, she put sticks in
the ground, one of the first to plant Chardonnay heavily in Montagny-le-Rhum, in Chigny-le-Ros
specifically. And the results were, of course, amazing straight away. And to this day, that
Chardonnay is what deliciously informs this vintage Brut from Domainil. Now, this is a 2015.
Like I said, this was disgorged in 2022. This wine has had over six years on tirage,
okay, before it was disgorged. So it's been in bottle for a few years,
but it also had a lot of time on the wheeze. And boy, this is 60 Chardonnay, 20 Mounier,
20 Pinot Noir, north-facing slopes in Chigny-le-Ros. So cooler sites, actually, which gives
that wonderful potential longevity here, which some folks, when you consider the vintage 2015,
juicy, warm, sunny vintage, some people don't consider it a van de guard vintage. And in some
cases, they'd be correct. Some folks pick too late. But we have north-facing slopes in Chigny-le-Ros.
You have acidity, you have balance, you have structure in the wine. And that certainly comes
into play here. We have that wonderful kind of green gold, that yellow gold color here,
that greenish hue to it, which I love. Always a sign of potential longevity. Usually a sign of
reductive style winemaking for the base wine, which bodes well for extended aging.
Juicy stone fruits, but tropical, tangy stone fruits. This isn't fat peach, heavy apricot,
heavy, no. This is focused, bright, zesty stone fruits with a lightly tropical edge to them,
which is absolutely delicious. And the wine's not the least bit brioche. It's not that ultra
doughy style of vintage champagne that we see. This wine has wonderful clarity and precision
and is drinking perfectly right now. Long story short, this wine's usually about a $70 retail,
which is actually a very good price for vintage champagnes. Most vintage champagnes we see in
the market now are easily skating in that $85 to $100 category on the shelf. Look it up. But
this was already a super deal at 70 bucks for old vine grower vintage champagne. But again,
that source didn't, maybe did reasonably well with it, but just wanted to be kind of done with it.
Gave us an amazing price, $34.98, right? So we're going half price on 11-year-old vintage
dated champagne. You will not find a better deal for a Millesime vintage champagne in the market
right now. I guarantee it. There's only 180 bottles. You know what to do. Click down below,
buy this wine immediately, quickly. It will sell out today. Also sign up for our daily email offers
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a few years ago, right? I haven't checked recently. We should probably check again sometime.
We'll see how we're doing. And now I'm just going to drink this champagne. Cheers.
