Moët Grand Vintage 2006

Because of strong demand, the deal on Moët & Chandon Grand Vintage 2006 at Majestic due to run until 9 May has ended prematurely. The best prices for this serious, vintage champagne are now £35 at Morrisons and £39 at ASDA.

Moet GV 2006 - high res picAlthough it was not officially launched until May 2014, I first tasted Moët & Chandon Grand Vintage 2006 on 23 January in 2014 with winemaker Benoît Gouez. He described it as “a very attractive, ample vintage that’s more open than 2004”. The blend is made up of 42% Chardonnay, 39% Pinot Noir and 19% Pinot Meunier. The Meunier is to bring the freshness to the blend normally delivered by the Chardonnay which Gouez says in ’06 were “ripe and Burgundy like in style”.

When first tasted over two years ago, it was already showing attractively, Continue reading “Moët Grand Vintage 2006”

Veuve Clicquot launches ’08 vintage on the Côte de Nuits

Started last week in Burgundy at Clos des Lambrays in Morey-Saint-Denis c/o Veuve Clicquot, for the launch of their 2008 Vintage Réserve. Clicquot never likes to do anything by halves, witness the event they organised in June 2014 around burying 300 bottles and 50 magnums on the Baltic seabed to test how champagne ages there;
http://www.decanter.com/news/wine-news/587201/veuve-clicquot-to-age-champagne-in-baltic-sea#XfUWqDDh2FG7AhpI.99

Continue reading “Veuve Clicquot launches ’08 vintage on the Côte de Nuits”

Ruinart: secrets of Blanc de Blancs

Not many of my friends see tasting champagne as work and sampling Ruinart Blanc de Blancs in bottle, magnum and jeroboam is even less likely to qualify in their eyes, though they’d mostly be puzzled to see the point in that – tasting the same wine* in three different formats that is. Add three different vintages of Ruinart’s prestige line Dom Ruinart Blanc de Blancs, including my favourite vintage of the 80s, and even I have to admit it just sounds like an extremely pleasant morning. And it was.

Frédéric Panaïotis took over as head winemaker at Ruinart in 2007 and I Continue reading “Ruinart: secrets of Blanc de Blancs”

Moët launches prestige cuvée MC111

Benoit Gouez of Moet at 2006 launch in 2014
Benoît Gouez

Released at a price premium well above ‘sister’ brand Dom Pérignon and produced in significantly smaller quantities, Moët & Chandon has launched its own ‘prestige cuvée’ named MC111. This wine has been a long time in the planning and harks back to Moët’s L’Esprit du Siècle – a blend of 11 top vintages of the 20th Century (1900, 1914, 1921, Continue reading “Moët launches prestige cuvée MC111”

Winemaker Richard Geoffroy on Dom Perignon rosé

When Dom Pérignon launches a new vintage, winemaker Richard Geoffroy likes to bring along some other bottles so you can compare and contrast. When I met up with him last month, as well as the soon to be released 2005 vintage, we tried again the so called ‘P2’ 1998 Dom Pérignon, the second release of DP that comes onto the market after further lees ageing (typically another 8 to 10 years) and now really showing its considerable class. We also looked at the latest Rosé release, the 2004, comparing that with the ‘P2’ pink from 1995, fast becoming my favourite vintage of that decade and these days regularly outclassing most ‘96s.

This was a great chance to look at how pink DP develops and evolves and in this short video I ask Richard to talk about the two rosés and their differences.

Richard Geoffroy shows new Dom Pérignon 2005

When I was organising the in depth tasting of Blanc de Blancs champagnes, vintage and unvintaged, for the on-trade magazine Imbibe last September,  I was questioned if there was an all Chardonnay Dom Pérignon cuvée to include in the mix. No I said, winemaker Richard Geoffroy would never do that, for him DP is all about blending the two pre-eminent varieties grown in Champagne’s vineyards, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Contrasting their different characteristics in a roughly 50/50 blend is what makes Dom Pérignon special, you couldn’t make a single vineyard or single varietal Dom Pérignon, he leaves that territory to Krug.

Contrary to what I said yesterday originally in this post, Dom Pérignon still isn’t making a Blanc de Blancs style. The wine I tasted this morning with head winemaker Richard Geoffroy was in fact the regular, if we can call it that, first release of the Dom Pérignon blend from 2005. And while the blend by coincidence has a relatively high 60% Chardonnay portion to 40% Pinot Noir, it is still a blend of the two, not a Blanc de Blancs.

We also tasted the the second release, newly dubbed P2, of Dom Pérignon 1998 which is now really strutting its stuff as well as two DP rosés, the new 2004 and the re-released, sublimely complex 1995 rosé, the first ‘P2 rosé’ (although there was a re-release of the 1990 DP rosé in 2010). There will be more about these wines shortly, although the new 2004 white Dom Pérignon will not be commercially available until around April. There’s also a short video with Richard talking about the two rosés that will be put up on the site in the next few days.

Ayala 2002 close to delicious peak

Yesterday my eldest son finished his IB exams and I had a look for something suitable to open in celebration. After a good deal of indecision, I eventually plumped for a bottle of Ayala 2002, partly on the basis that was the year when he started at the school at the age of seven. The Ayala wines under Hervé Augustin’s reign there as MD all have disgorgement dates on the back label, something he instigated that I thoroughly approve of.  Unfortunately on this particular bottle the space for this date is empty (see photograph). However I reckon it’s been in my cellar at least 12 months.

Probably the best vintage of the past decade (though ’04 is shaping up very well) , a lot of 2002s are I believe still a long way off their best, so I was hoping we wouldn’t regret opening this as it’s the only bottle I have. We didn’t, it was absolutely gorgeous. A glorious deep golden colour it was at or near a delicious peak with developed aromas of honey and toast plus a sumptuous creamy texture. It’s a wine of impressive intensity without being at all heavy. With the blend made from 80% Pinot Noir sourced in Aÿ and Mareuil-sur-Aÿ set against top class Grand Cru Chardonnay from Mesnil-sur-Oger, Cramant and Chouilly it certainly has impeccable breeding.

I have tried many fine 2002s and it’s a vintage I look forward to returning to over the next ten years or more (I’m still reluctant to drink ‘88s), but this was probably the single bottle of ’02 that I have enjoyed most. I am glad to report it is still available too at Champagne Direct online (£42.95) and vintagewinegifts (£54.97 in wooden box with accessories).

On a separate but connected note, at the last Waitrose tasting when their pre-Christmas champagne selection was looking very lacklustre, the Ayala Brut Majeur NV was the only fizz offering any excitement in the line-up. It will be interesting to see if their tasting tomorrow has any champagne highlights.

Bollinger War vintages

When I came into the office for the first time last week there was a message on my ansafone from a ChampagneGuru visitor, asking if I could help evaluate or provide any information about a very old bottle of vintage Bollinger from the war years.  Intriguing I thought, knowing there were several fine vintages between 1939 and 1945, some picked while the front line was very close to Reims.

Bollinger actually made three: 1941, Madame Lily Bollinger’s first vintage that produced wines that were ‘powerful and balanced’; 1943 – ‘a difficult year for an exceptional result’ with very concentrated wines; and finally 1945: ‘Solid wines that later proved to be a great vintage, powerful and able to be kept for a long time’.

Sadly I haven’t tasted any of these three and I don’t even know if they have bottles left in the cellars in Aÿ, though I suspect they do. I have tasted other wines from the 40s including Veuve Clicquot’s, but the oldest Bollinger I have a record of trying is 1979 RD a few years back. When I called back I discovered the wine in question was in fact the ’43 and we are now trying to find out its rarity, condition and thus its ‘value’. A quick look on Wine Searcher gives an average price for this wine of £798 ex tax per bottle and reveals four places, all in Germany, still offering the wine, although three of them only have half bottles.

In fact all four of them only have half bottles as I discovered when I emailed them (they do have 1941 and 1949 Bollinger in 75cl bottles though). So it is over to Bollinger to see if they still have any bottles of 1943 left.

Moët releases 1911 vintage in 11 six bottle cases

Moët & Chandon has released 11 six bottle cases of the vintage champagne it produced from 1911 vintage. There’s just one case in the UK at Harrods and it could be yours for £65,000, that’s a mere £10,833.33 a bottle.  The first case, sold in Hong Kong in September fetched U$100,000 and another case is due to be auctioned for charity in New York at Christie’s sale of Fine & Rare Wines on November 19, 2011. I had the chance to taste this 100 year old vintage with Moët & Chandon Chef de Cave Benoît Gouez last week.

To get warmed up for the 1911 vintage we first taste the current release of Moët Grand Vintage 2002, followed by the 1992 and 1990 vintages. This selection is not random, as with the past few vintage launches from Moët (see below), they like to show a few wines from their extensive library selection that the winemaking team headed up by Gouez view as similar in style. The launches of 2003, 2002 and 2000 vintages have given me the opportunity to taste some fantastic old wines. This time round we are doing it the other way and trying to find some younger wines that might develop like the 1911 vintage has.

While the blend for Moët vintage has never been rigid, today Gouez has great flexibility in choosing the blend of varieties that he sees as offering the most interesting most and characterful expression of the vintage. The 2002 blend is 51% Chardonnay, 26% Pinot Noir and 23% Pinot Meunier; the 1992 is 45% each of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir with 10% Meunier while the 1990 is made up from 50% Pinot Noir, 40% Chardonnay and 10% Pinot Meunier which Gouez describes as the classic Moët recipe of the 50’s.

What they have in common is a certain richness and ripeness of fruit and while ’92 would not be seen by many as in the same class as the very highly rated ’02 and 1990 vintages it is at a very attractive stage in its development showing a toasty character with a distinctive pronounced mocha note and lovely palate richness.  But these three wines were very much the warm up to the main event, the 1911.

The blend for the 1911 is unknown, says Gouez but likely to be mostly Chardonnay and Pinot Noir and there’s no Pinot Meunier in it, but perhaps, he suggests, it includes some Pinot Blanc. There’s little information about it in the archives merely that it was a very small harvest at a very good level, a year to remember. It was all fermented in small oak casks as was customary at that time. The 1,500 bottles of 1911 that were left in Moet’s cellars were in one pile, completely untouched and Gouez said when he sorted through them he found many that were broken or had little or no wine left in them. “To get 150 good bottles I had to use 1,000. Some were empty and most were oxidized while quite a few had a too powerful mushroom taste. There are 500 left undisgorged that I might get a further 50 from.”

The wine was given a dosage of 7gm/l and all the bottles disgorged in January 2011. On pouring the first thing to note is the colour, an attractive pale gold, not a brown sherry-like liquid you might expect after 100 years ageing. The nose is a mix of crystallized fruit with a distinctive panettone bread character. It is not very fizzy with about 1bar of pressure (as opposed to champagne usual 6) but you can see a distinct fine bead of very small bubbles and it certainly isn’t without life and energy. The palate is rich with a savoury umami note, there is a mild attractive mushroom taste and the richness just holds there hardly fading at all in a very long finish.

Wines tasted against the last three Grand Vintage releases at their launch

2002: 1992, 1982, 1975, 1964

2003: 1995, 1990, 1976, 1959

2000: 1988, 1982, 1962, 1952 Dry and Le Mesnil 1900, also tasted 1996, 1961 and 1921 on a separate occasion as we were in Epernay.

Ruinart celebrates 50 years of Dom Ruinart, 16 October 2009

Originally published on Decanter.com 23 October, 2009

Ruinart Champagne held a vertical tasting of its prestige cuvée Dom Ruinart Blanc de Blancs at restaurant Apicius in Paris last week to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Starting with the 1959, there have been 21 different vintages of this cuvée released although it proved impossible to source bottles of them all. They only have stocks of 10 vintages going back to 1981 plus the 1969 left in Ruinart’s own historic cellars in Reims — the plan was to taste these 11 plus the seven venerable vintages which Ruinart’s current Chef de Cave Frédéric Panaiotis managed to purchase from specialist retailers and collectors.

Sadly they couldn’t find any 1959, 1966 or 1976, three top class vintages in Champagne, the ’59 and ’76 being two of the warmest summers on record. Panaiotis did however source some 1961, 1964, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1978 and 1979. Unfortunately quite a few of these hadn’t been well cellared and the ‘69 from Ruinart’s own cellar demonstrated the importance of storage conditions and was the star among the older wines.  The 80s produced the highlights of the tasting.

The key thing to know about Dom Ruinart’s Blanc de Blancs style is that the fruit isn’t all sourced from the grands crus of the Côte des Blancs. It is all grands crus but there is an important element in the blend – 50% of the cuvée in the case of the 1990 though this is the highest proportion — from three Montagne de Reims grands crus Sillery, Verzenay and Puisieulx. This tends to give the wines more weight and a certain white Burgundian quality as they age.

Highlights of the tasting

1998: the current release (to be followed by 2002) almost colourless in the glass, it’s lemon-scented with floral notes and a hint of honey. Still very fresh, lively and youthful there is a biscuity note building but it needs more time.

1996: similarly pale to the ’98 this is still notably linear with a lovely purity of fruit and lively acidity but barely developed as yet

1993: more colour and the first in the line-up showing real signs of development and maturity with bready, yeasty notes and an attractive richness. It’s still a surprise as to why Ruinart made this in preference to the superior ‘95 vintage.

1990: for many of the tasters this was the star of the show though I thought it lacked richness in the mid-palate, a surprise given it was picked at 10.8deg. The magnum we had with lunch was superior, still very fresh with a long future ahead of it but showing more ripe buttery notes and a lovely overall balance.

1988: A glorious, light golden colour and the highest proportion of Montagne de Reims Chardonnay (44%) outside the 1990 this has developed into a lovely, lusciously rich, silky textured wine with a developed toastiness, pronounced mocha notes and a long complex finish. Mature white Burgundy with bubbles.

1986: One of the biggest surprises in the line-up, this has gone a rich golden colour and there is a honeyed sweetness on the palate redolent more of a Semillon based pudding wine. Panaiotis says he doesn’t know what to do with the 300 bottles he left in the cellar but liked the suggestion of matching it with foie gras.

1985: Richly coloured like the ’86 this has three-quarters Côte des Blancs fruit in the blend and it’s a class act. Ripe notes of quince, a hint of blackcurrant and while it’s ripe, even opulent there’s a refreshing streak of acidity keeping the whole wine in balance and harmony.

1982: this seems to have more in common with the ’88, its paler in colour, very toasty on the nose and there are secondary notes of coffee, chocolate and ceps. At or near its peak, it would be lovely with roast turbot.

1981: a tiny yield of just 4,360kgs/ha (compare that with over 14,000kgs/ha in 2008 & 2009) this harvest produced some great wines (like ’81 Krug) and this is surprising fresh initially, leading to a concentrated buttery rich mid-palate and a savoury finish. A delight and unlike any of the other wines tasted.

1969: very pale the lightest in colour since the ’81 (a good sign after several sherry-like oxidised wines) this was amazingly fresh still and a good advertisement for Champagne’s longevity. There was a rich toasty element but more noticeable was an attractive biscuity palate texture and a savoury almost saline finish. Classy

1961: Not a great example of this fine year but while slightly oxidised it didn’t completely hide an underlying lively fruity freshness. Would love to try a well cellared example, Moët 1961 is one of the finest champagnes I have ever tasted.