Champagne Visit - Deutz

Obvious there where a rather big contrast from our first visit to small producer Laherte Fréres to big house @ Deutz, which was our next stop.

We where greeted by director Jean-Marc Lallier of the Deutz family at the beautiful house in the center of Aÿ. After we had had coffee we took a small stroll in the gardens which lead to the production hall and cellars. I didn't actually know this, but Deutz uses no oak at all - only stainless steel tanks. I would have thought that the impressive Rosé Cuvée William Deutz saw some oak, but no - the philosophy is to make elegant wines and keep the traditions.
The cellars were an impressive historical site. Like a big underground maze with about 2.1 km of small paths. Not the worst place to get lost as 8 million bottles are lying there. 

Back at the house again we taste 3 wines - the NV Brut Classic, 1999 Amour de Deutz and the 1998 Cuvée William Deutz. The standard cuvée had signs of too high dosage in my opinion, but did have a subtle nutty feeling, which was fair - but overall a rather anonymous wine. The 1999 Amour was way too young, but I really liked the structure of this wine, which could turn out to benefit the wine with 6-7 years of cellaring. The 1998 CWD was however rather open for business, showing spices, dark bread and chocolate flavors. I don't see this being a long distant runner, but for drinking now + 8 years it's a real pleaser. 

I have to say that I have feared this visit could have ended in a trivial big house guided tour (which I have tried before), but Jean-Marc Lallier was more than committed and showed great hospitality to us as gave us insight in the historical evolution of Champagne and the house of Deutz.

For more information on Deutz: http://www.champagne-deutz.com/presentation/index.html