‘You don’t know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone,’ sang Joni Mitchell in the 1970 song Big Yellow Taxi. Ten years on from Champagne’s initially underrated 2013 vintage, as releases of prestige cuvées and special editions slowly drip through, Champagne lovers are starting to feel the same way. How many vintages like 2013 will we see again?
Julian Gout, cellar master of Ayala in Aÿ, has fond memories of a year that finished almost a month and a half later than many other vintages (such as 2011). It was so late in fact that he was able to squeeze in another harvest beforehand: ‘I harvested two times: once in Tuscany in August, and then in October in Champagne!’
