Champagne De Lozey Sous Bois: The Ultimate Guide To The Next Great Champagne

I was asked recently, do I have any champagnes that intimidate me? And the reality is, I do. There are a few champagnes that straight up intimidate me. Not like I'm afraid of them, but more like, am I ready for this? Is this something that is in my wheelhouse to explore and to, you know, sample and to, I don't know. And so I've got all these champagnes that I've been just kind of sitting on for a long time. And that's not a bad thing, but. And like I said, I was asked, do I have one? And I said, I do. And I said to myself, it's time to embrace change. It's time to open this up and explore it. So tonight, we're going to explore a champagne that I've been looking forward to for a long time. We're gonna talk about its history, its family, where it's from, and what is so special about this soir. I'm Daryl, your champagne expert. Let's get bubbly. ♪ To tell you, to tell you, and say it's true ♪ ♪ But it took me a to see ♪ So one of the things that makes this so special is that they take their wines, while they're aging it, and they use a process called the solara. And that means that they have a big barrel or a tank and they drain it out to use it, but there's still some left in there and they add new wine or new juice into that. And it just keeps perpetuating. So it's just, it's really awesome. Bakers do this quite a bit. When they're making bread, they have their mother, they have that piece of that dough that is just been added to over and over again. And it just helps keep things consistent and helps make your signature thing yours. And the solara method really does that when it comes to champagnes. So enough talk, let's get into this. So this house has been in the trust of the family for four generations. The Siltrons have been running this for quite a long time. And the wines that go into this tend to be on the rather old side, okay? And this is from a part of the Champagne region that I have been dealing with and sampling and trying a lot of. This is from the Cote d'Ivoire. So this is, like I said, 100% blanc to blanc, aged for six to eight years, just depends. And it sat in a barrel, an oak barrel, for nine months. That's a decent amount of time. So this house is known for, in their own words, producing very flamboyant champagnes, very in-your-face, very just like lively and complex and opulent. And I've had a few of their champagnes and that is, they're not letting me down when it comes to that. Their champagnes are opulent. They are geared towards gastronomy. These are champagnes that are made for consumption of food. And with something as powerful as this Soubois, you really do wanna have something to eat to go along with it because this is something that you're gonna really wanna make sure you pair with. But we're just gonna try it tonight. So let's get going. All right. My absolute favorite part of any day. Here we go. Are you excited? Oh, she got me. Hang on a sec. It happens every now and then. One gets you, but that's all right. So let's get back to the champagne here. Like I said, 100% Chardonnay. It's got a dosage of eight grams per liter. Immediately opening this up, okay? The room is filled with vanilla, with woody notes, with earthy notes, with brioche. It's immediate. And I love that. And I'm excited. I'm just, we're just gonna dive right in. So like I said, they designed this to be in your face. This is for bold moments. This is for opulence. This is for elegance. This is a champagne that you show off with. This is something you, ooh, and I've never had it, and I'm gonna try it. So let's get in those. Right there, boom, vanilla, okay? Need some fresh fruit, okay? Some light, some apple. That's gonna be that aging for nine months in wood. And that's gonna be pronounced, because that's the whole point of this. It's got a beautiful golden color to it. A little on the light side, but that's okay. So let's take a taste. Whoa. So flamboyant. Yeah, most definitely. Bold, it's an understatement. Elegant is an understatement. The mouthfeel is buttery. It really is like I took a taste of butter. It has a beautiful length to it. And that's just on the attack. I mean, just on the attack alone, this was, wow. Ooh, that length is still there. There's a lot of roundness here. Even on the attack, I'm getting the complexity of the aging. Some of the wood it's aged in is new, some it's old. And you get that, you can get that nuance. It's all Chardonnay, so you are getting that crispiness. You are getting that liveliness from that Chardonnay. And it isn't tamed at all by its aging in the wood. Not by a long shot. As a matter of fact, the wood aging seems to have brought out some nuances in that Chardonnay. Especially because, like I said, down in the Cote d'Ivoire, you're gonna get some earthy, more complex, more fruity, short of Chardonnay's words in the Cote d'Ivoire, you're gonna get the crisper, more chalky, salinic, say that three times fast, salinic champagnes out of their grapes. All right, let's go for in for a taste. Wow. On the palate, it is rich. It is so rich. It is not overpowering in any way. You know what it reminds me of? Specifically the mouthfeel. It's like eating Jell-O. I'm dead serious, that's what it reminds me of. The mouth feels like Jell-O. Not in a negative way, not like this is bad. Oh my God, here's a Jell-O. No. It's just so coating. It's just that, oh, that malolactic fermentation, that malolactic acid is just so powerful. And that's what you get. I have been eyeing this champagne for so long because I love malolactic fermentation in my champagnes. And to finally have one that really takes it to a higher degree where that's its point was really exciting. And in all honesty, slightly intimidating. It's not like I am afraid of it, but it was like, wow, like it was my palate ready for it. And fortunately it was. Let's get another taste here. Wow. So even though this has aged for six to eight years on these and it spends nine months in barrels, the family uses reserve wines, some of it dating back to 15, 10, 15 years. I mean, think about that. They're blending in to their champagnes, 10 to 15 year old reserve wines. This is a house that is saying something. And I'm so impressed. I am just so impressed. Like this is, you have to try this. I mean, all the champagnes that we explore and experience, they all have their nuances and they all have their ups and their downs and they all have their greatness and they all have their failures. I mean, you know, but this is just intensity in a way that most of us don't get to experience. I drink champagne for a living and I've never experienced anything like that. Wow. So what would I pair this with? Okay. This is a champagne that you wanna, kind of stay in a lane. Poultry, perfect. Any poultry dish, creamier, the better. And I rarely say that. You want, you have a rich, creamy meal right here. That's what, there you go. This is a laser beam through richness, laser beam through acidity. It goes through, grabs it and pulls it along with it. And you get an incredible secondary experience from your food. Obviously seafood, okay. White meat, I would stick with pork. I'm gonna say this though. This is something that you could go very pedestrian onto. With its complexity, with its richness, with its wittiness, with its pure Chardonnay, with its age, with its all, all of these things. The tendency would be to pair it with something, you know, foie gras or, no, you can just go basic. Grab yourself a baguette and some cheese. What are my final thoughts on this? And I've been kind of giving them to you the entire time, but wow. Oh my God. All right, well, final thoughts. You wanna be opulent. You wanna be flamboyant. You wanna be center stage. You walk in a room with this. You pour this in somebody's glass. You let the room be filled with its elegance. You let the room be filled with its bouquet. Because trust me, the minute that court came out and everything else, unfortunately, the room was filled with that beauty. That's what you are going to get. And that is what you are going to present. Ooh, this is something that I'm gonna have to keep a couple of bottles of because I'm digging this. It is complex. It is rich. It is lively. It is round. It is hitting every single one of the notes. It is hitting them all beautifully. Top 10, definitely. I'm gonna leave it in the comments, what I think in terms of where it is, but this is up there. This is a top 10 right now. I know I get a lot of grief because I have my top 10s and I'm not that consistent about it. That's just because it takes a lot to either get into it or supplant something, okay? And it changes. But this, simply based on the fact that it is so complete, so round, so whole, so lively, so astringent for a Cote d'Ivoire Chardonnay, I wasn't expecting that. But again, that's gonna be from the aging, the old wines, the savoir method, the, it's gonna be from the Solara. All of that is just layer upon layer upon layer and I understand it. I really understand the thinking with this. You layer enough amazing things on top of each other. It's either boom or bust, okay? And we've all had a meal where absolutely every single part of it was wonderful, but the meal was lackluster. Or that meal where its parts were mediocre, but the way they were brought together made it amazing. This is taking amazing parts, layering them together and producing a apex champagne. This is an apex champagne. And I am, wow, I am glad I finally got around to being bold enough to try it, that my palate was ready for it, because that's a big problem I have, is making sure that your palate is ready for it, making sure that you, as a champagne expert, a champagne taster, a champagne connoisseur and importer, and you gotta make sure that you understand your own palate and you gotta be confident to say my palate needs refinement, which it is gonna be needing refinement until the day I die. But it's also a matter of realizing that you might not be as spot on as you think. I have multiple people who I look to as mentors who give me guidance, who I ask questions about, and there are a lot of times I'll say, hey, look, I don't know how to approach this champagne. Have you had it? Yes, great, help me. And I've learned to embrace that, because it makes me a better professional, it makes me a better representative of these houses, it makes me a better all-around champagne lover, champagne expert. Wow. As always, I thank you all for the support. Like and subscribe, please. It is so little, but it means a lot to me. My goal is to hit 1,000 subscribers by the end of the summer. The only reason I want 1,000 is because it's been my goal, starting this business and starting this journey. I wanna touch 1,000 people. I just wanna touch 1,000 people. I want 1,000 people to be happy when I post a video. I want 1,000 people on this planet to know they're gonna get 15 minutes of relaxation and enjoyment. Like, subscribe, leave a comment, tell me what you like, tell me what you don't. Tell me what you think of the new setup, you know? Tell me what you think of the new digs, you know? I worked really hard on it and, you know, I like it, but tell me what you think. Tell me what you think of the new image of the Champagne Company. We had some new equipment, which is awesome, because I'll explain that later, but Jamaica was awesome, but we also had some very serious technical problems. Anyway, I digress. You all make this so worth it, and I really appreciate the support, I really do. As always, this is the best job a person could have. I'm Daryl, your Champagne expert. Stay bubbly.