Le Sourire de Reims Brut, Champagne Abelé 1757 2013
Gold, International Wine Challenge 2025; Silver, Decanter World Wine Awards 2025
Mix any six bottles and you pay the Any 6+ price at checkout — no code needed.
£10 tracked UK delivery, however many bottles.
We pack and send twice a week, Wednesdays and Fridays, by Royal Mail Tracked 48.
Members pay £117.20 — £29.30 less on this bottle. Membership is £120 a year and carries the EDKA Promise. Membership terms
Why this wine
Abelé 1757 is the fifth oldest house in Champagne and keeps production deliberately tiny, so this cuvée rarely travels far. A minimum of ten years on the lees before hand disgorgement is what gives it the buttered, toasty depth; almost nothing else at this level is released so late. Made only in very small quantities.
At a glance
- Grape
- Chardonnay 60%, Pinot Noir 40%
- Region
- Champagne, France
- Alcohol
- 12.50%
- Body
- Medium
- Acidity
- High
- Sweetness
- Dry
- Drink
- Long (10-20 yrs)
- Pairs with
- Seafood, Poultry & Pork, Cheese
How it tastes
Golden in the glass, with summer honey, liquorice and white pepper over an intense core of buttered brioche and toast. Full and voluptuous in texture from its long ageing, but cut by crisp minerality and spicy ginger through a long finish; a 6 g/l dosage keeps it dry. Chardonnay 60%, Pinot Noir 40%.
The producer
Established in 1757, Abelé is the fifth oldest house in Champagne and has stayed family-run, deliberately small and slow. The blend for this flagship cuvée takes 60% Chardonnay from the Côte des Blancs, including Cramant and Bergères-les-Vertus, and 40% Pinot Noir from the north of the Montagne de Reims at Verzy and Verzenay, grown by a small circle of vine-growers on plots sometimes no bigger than gardens and hand-harvested. Fermentation took place in stainless steel to hold the freshness, the blend included 20% reserve wines, and the bottles were stacked on wooden lathes for a minimum of ten years in the deep chalk cellars, then hand riddled and disgorged à la volée. The 2013 season was hard work: a cold, wet winter, a cool spring with an exceptionally cold week in May, and then a hot, dry summer that arrived in June and carried the vines to excellent phenolic maturity. It was produced in very small quantities.
Food and drinking
Serve at 10–12°C. It has the weight for roast turbot, guinea fowl, a mushroom tart or hard mountain cheeses. Drink now and over the next five to ten years; no decanting needed. Suitable for vegetarians and vegans.