De Boe Rosé Brut 2023: Zeeland's First Bubble

The colour is the first thing you notice. Not the pale salmon of most rosé brut, but deep copper, almost onion-skin, as if the pinot noir had spent a little longer on its skins. I poured it on a boat somewhere above the Oosterschelde, and against the low evening sun the glass turned the colour of old bronze.

This is the first sparkling wine Bruno Suter ever made. The 2023 vintage, bought at the estate, from Bruno himself. That makes it more interesting than the average debut bubble: you are tasting where a very young Zeeland estate stands the first time it attempts the hardest wine style there is.

A Zeeland grape, a Mosel cellar

Suter has been planting vines on Walcheren since 2021, five hectares around an old orchard between Middelburg and Vlissingen. The vines are young, and full production is not expected until around 2027 or 2028. For his first sparkling he chose pinot noir and pinot noir précoce, in a 70/30 blend, the classic red grapes for a bottle-fermented rosé.

What the label does not tell you: these bubbles were not made in Zeeland. The vinification ran through Schaufelberger Sekt in Brauneberg on the Mosel, a Sektmanufaktur that handles the méthode traditionnelle for small growers. So “bottled in salty Zeeland” sits on a wine that got its second fermentation six hundred kilometres inland. No shame in that, plenty of young estates start this way, but it helps to know what you hold: Zeeland fruit, German craft.

The wine spent nine months on the lees, by the traditional method. That is short for a sparkling wine, and you can taste it.

What to pair it with

That saline swipe and the red fruit almost demand the local coast. Zeeland oysters, especially the fuller creuses, or a plate of Oosterschelde lobster. It also works with smoked trout, or simply as an aperitif on a warm evening by the water, exactly where I drank it.

Serve it around 8 degrees. Colder and the nose shuts down, warmer and the acidity turns sharp.

Twenty-eight euros for a first effort

At €28 De Boe is not playing in the entry tier. You compare it with Domein Holset from Limburg, with the Amsteltuin Johannes I, and with entry Crémant or a simple grower Champagne around the same money. In that company this rosé is not yet a winner on depth. What you buy is something else: a first vintage from an estate you can follow from the very start, with a colour and a saline twist you will not find anywhere else.

I have since tasted the second version of this sparkling. More on that later. What I see in this glass is reason enough to open that next bottle.

Wine facts

Producer

Wijndomein De Boe

Wine

Rosé Brut 2023

Region

Walcheren, Zeeland (PGI Zeeland)

Grapes

70% Pinot Noir, 30% Pinot Noir Précoce

Method

Traditional method, 9 months on the lees

Alcohol

12%

Price

€28

Sources

• Primary source: bottle label Wijndomein De Boe Rosé Brut 2023 (front and back)
• Additional: Wijndomein De Boe, webshop
• Additional: own tasting notes, Sparks episodes 16 (Bruno Suter) and 17 (Jochen Schaufelberger)
• Additional: Savor the Harvest on Wijndomein De Boe (confirms the 70/30 blend and Schaufelberger vinification)