2013 Suenen Les Robarts Cramant Blanc de Blancs Champagne

Champagne nerds might recognise this lieu-dit as one of the sources of Pascal Agrapart’s stunning Avizoise cuvée. Suenen’s vines lie across the border in the Cramant section of this vineyard, at the top of a small hill. Originally planted in 1952, then further in 1978 and 1984, the average age of Suenen’s vines is 37 years old with a large portion of massale selection vines. Suenen describes this terroir—30 cm of silty clay over degraded, upper Campanian chalk—as combining the tension and salinity of Oiry with the concentration of Chouilly. It is the most textural of Suenen’s four lieux-dits releases and also, arguably the most complex. Depth and concentration yet with great freshness and drive—it’s impossible to describe neatly but it’s superb.

The 2013 was aged in a single Stockinger 20-hl foudre for 10 months before bottling in July 2014. As with all the single-site wines in 2013, this spent five years on lees until disgorgement, with 2 g/L, in June 2019.

Other Reviews....
Disgorged in October 2019 with four grams per liter dosage, Suenen's 2013 Extra-Brut Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru Cramant Les Robarts is brilliant, unwinding in the glass with scents of fresh pastry, crisp stone fruit, smoke, green apple and orange oil. Full-bodied, layered and concentrated, it's vinous and textural, with more mid-palate volume than any other cuvée in the range—excepting, that is Le Mont-Aigu. Penetrating and intensely mineral, it's serious and complete.
95 points
William Kelley - Wine Advocate (Apr 2021)