Wine of the week: the epitome of affordable elegance

published 17 August 2020

2007 Ayala, No.7 Brut, Champagne, France

£58, thefinestbubble.com; £70, thechampagnecompany.com, champagnedirect.co.uk; £560 per 12 bottles in bond, biwine.com

I have a soft spot for Ayala. I visited the winery 13 years ago and asked them to keep back several hundred cases of their fizz in their cellars, in Aÿ, for an extra nine months over the usual three years, to differentiate it from the regular Brut Majeur cuvée. A label saying “extra age” was stuck on the neck. This special label was a huge success for the members of a private club, but it was not on general release. It was a cool project and the wine was sublime.

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Imagine my surprise when I spotted a bottle at a Majestic tasting the other day, labelled Ayala Extra Age (£44.99, reduced to £34.99 for a Mix Six) – it brought the memories flooding back and reminded me that I had to tell you about my featured wine, the moment it secured retail distribution.

Tasted back in early June, this sensational sparkler was made to celebrate Ayala’s 160th anniversary this year. Available in very small quantities, 2007 No.7 is made from the fruit selected from seven Grand Cru villages – two-thirds chardonnay from Avize, Chouilly, Cramant, Le Mesnil-sur-Oger and Oger, and one-third pinot noir from Aÿ and Verzy. It is finished with a firm 6 gm/l dosage and, after 11 years of (extra) ageing, it is the epitome of affordable elegance. I say “affordable” because its flavour obliterates all but a handful of Champagnes with three-digit price tags.

Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition’s Communicator of the Year (matthewjukes.com)

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Matthew Jukes has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books.

Matthew regularly lectures, judges, speaks at wine conferences and runs masterclass tastings for both corporate and private clients all over the world. Matthew is also the creator of his ground-breaking initiative, the One Day Wine School, an indulgent day of tasting and learning first performed in 2006.

He has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006 and has written a weekly column for the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine since 1999. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website, www.matthewjukes.com.

Matthew is one of the world’s leading experts on Australian wine and, with Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer, runs an annual competition in Australia to find ‘The Great Australian Red’. He was made Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK at the 2012 Australia Day Foundation Gala dinner.

Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy. His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.