By Linden Wilkie, 22nd September 2022

After a generation of growing grapes for a major Champagne house, Alain and Marie Demets debuted their own label – Marie Demets in 1986. The domaine, located in Gyé-sur-Seine in the Côte des Bar, grew to 10 hectares in 15 plots across the villages Gyé-sur-Seine, Neuville-sur-Seine, Courteron, Polisy and Buxeuil along the Seine Valley. The soils here are Kimmeridgian and Portlandian, like we find in Chablis. 

The house wine is Brut Tradition, a lovely 100% Pinot Noir, clean, bright, full of freshness and fruit, it is round-textured and pleasing. An ideal aperitif. Although there is an easiness to this wine, there is a good proportion of reserve wine blended with the base year, giving it some pleasing depth too.

Alain and Marie’s son Pierre joined in 2008 and took over in 2014, and was joined by his wife Mathilde in 2017. Together they have brought some new ideas – and new small cuvées to the range. We thought they were very special, and are pleased to share them with you.

The first is 2017 Intransigeance, a blend of 56% Pinot Noir and 44% Chardonnay, it is very low dosage (1g/l) very pure and precise wine, crisp, long and gently chalky in texture, very finely balanced. It is a contemporary style Champagne, with the intensity for gastronomic parings suited for delicate dishes.

Then, two very special wines, both 100% Chardonnay and both having had primary fermentation in single large fût de chêne (oak casks). 2017 ‘La Fôret’ is an extra brut, the fuller, rounder, grander feeling of the two, with good freshness, and a saline-like note, while 2017 ‘Fins’ is tighter, more reductive (almost Roulot or Coche-like), taut and intense with a lemon-like citrus flavour.