ChampagneGuru has teamed up with WinesDirect to offer readers the chance to get an even better deal on many champagnes bought online. While we are continuing to highlight the best offers in supermarkets, off licence chains and small independent merchants on these pages, now we can also give you the opportunity to save more money on many of the online deals available. This is because WinesDirect has negotiated advantageous deals & special vouchers with many of these retailers. And they have constructed a special page on their website for ChampagneGuru readers that you can just click through to from this WinesDirect link or from our main Champagne Offers page.
Waitrose sells single bottles of champagne online
Waitrose is tapping into the online market for fizz with a new service that started on Thursday (21 April) that allows customers to buy single bottles of champagne with free delivery. It’s offering an impressive range of 47 different lines — 42 champagnes and five English sparklers — through this new service with prices starting at £26.99 a bottle for Duval-Leroy’s Fleur de Champagne, while the most expensive bottle currently is a Salmanazar (equivalent to 12 standard bottles) of Bollinger Special Cuvée Brut NV at £675.
There are no
Own Label champagnes or Waitrose exclusive labels and most of the wines are from the major houses. Among the initial Continue reading “Waitrose sells single bottles of champagne online”
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”
Krug launches 2002 vintage & changes Grand Cuvée label (slightly)
Yesterday I had the chance to try the newly released Krug 2002 vintage, along with a group of top sommeliers and chefs, many of whom are Krug ambassadors. One of the last, if not the last, major house to put its ’02 offering on the market, the expectations were high. The wine isn’t a disappointment. Subtle, gentle, harmonious, it has that indefinable quality, that extra dimension, lift and intensity that only the top vintages in Champagne offer with a silky texture and long finish. To put the new wine in context after a mandatory glass of Grande Cuvée, the current release based Continue reading “Krug launches 2002 vintage & changes Grand Cuvée label (slightly)”
Great offer on some of my favourite fizz
The Wine Society has some great offers on champagne running until the year end. And they have put together a mouth-watering six bottle case you can order up until 27 December for delivery by New Year’s Eve. And they’ve extended the deadline for pre-Christmas delivery to midnight on Sunday (20 December).
The case includes one bottle each of Charles Heidsieck Brut Réserve, consistently one of the best and most complex NV champagnes on the market over the past decade; the Society’s superb barrel Continue reading “Great offer on some of my favourite fizz”
Taittinger to make fizz in Kent
Taittinger has bought land in Kent with the plan to produce high quality English sparkling wine. In a deal signed on 18 November, Taittinger has purchased 69 hectares of farmland orchard at Stone Stile Farm, near Chilham, from the Gaskain family who are established Kent fruit farmers. It’s estimated that between 35 and 40 hectares of the farm,
located on a sheltered site just to the west of Canterbury, are on suitable, Continue reading “Taittinger to make fizz in Kent “
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”
Five reasons to drink champagne (as if you need encouraging)
Found this report in the Daily Telegraph online which claims to have discovered five ‘health-benefits’ from drinking champagne. While readers of this blog will need no encouragement to open a bottle of fizz (and we all know champagne is good for the soul), I feel it deserves closer examination.
Apparently drinking champagne will ‘improve your memory’, or at least Continue reading “Five reasons to drink champagne (as if you need encouraging)”
Moët launches prestige cuvée MC111
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”
Harvest starts in Champagne
Back in mid-July when the CIVC (Comité interprofessionnel du vin de Champagne) set the yield level for the 2015 harvest in Champagne it was predicting a harvest start of around 10 September after heat waves and near drought conditions in June and July slowed vine growth. But after beneficial rain in the second half of August allowed the berries to grow further, warm sunny weather since has accelerated maturation and picking began in some villages in the Sézannais and Côte des Bar regions as early as 29 August.
Speaking to Cyril Brun, the new head winemaker at Charles 
Heidsieck in London on Wednesday this week he told me they had the first delivery of juice into the winery – Chardonnay from the village of Montgueux to the west of Troyes — on the previous day (1 September), though he expects picking to start in earnest next week. Philippe Brun of Roger Brun confirms that picking will start in some of the best exposed plots in Aÿ, like his La Pelle vineyard, tomorrow (5 September).
Cyril Brun is hopeful of a high quality crop if the good weather holds as expected over the next fortnight. The grapes are in a very healthy condition with very few disease problems thanks partly to the lack of rain over the summer. Speaking from Florence where he is running a tasting Laurent d’Harcourt MD of Pol Roger said that the quality of the Chardonnay was particularly high, but he would have to see the juice in the presses next week to get a better idea if we are talking about vintage quality.