A NEIL'S DEAL PREMIUM PICK
Cote Des Bars, Aube, Champagne, FR
100% Chardonnay
RP from 1991
5 Years on lees
Disgorged April 2023 with 4g RS
 
The Dumont Solera Reserve is a unique Champagne made using the solera method, now more commonly known as “perpetual reserve” (and for about 20 vintages!). This means that this Champagne is the result of adding young wine to a tank containing older wine (⅓ of which is removed for bottling each year), which gives it an evolving complexity but renewed freshness. It is toasty and savory with bright notes of citrus custard and lemon confit brioche richness, with only a very tiny amount of dosage. It has a gorgeous palate with energetic, tiny bubbles that taper into a lengthy, refined finish where all those citrus and toast notes linger majestically.
 
About. Champagne Dumont is based in the village of Champignol-lez-Mondeville, in the southern Champagne region of the Aube, about 90 miles southeast of Reims and Epernay. The Dumont brothers have 23 hectares of vineyards in the Côte des Bar, planted predominantly with Pinot Noir but also with Chardonnay and other grape varieties. The Kimmeridgian chalky clay soils here are more similar to those in Chablis than the rest of Champagne. Bernard Dumont’s comments are insightful, “We grow grapes on the same soils as the vine growers in the Chablis region. There, they produce white wine from white grapes, and here we produce white wine from red grapes.”