Keith,
If you go back to the premise of the issue, the problem remains that unless you can find the same exact disgorgement date of a wine, you can’t necessarily match it to a review. That doesn’t pass my smell test. There are too many different disgorgements of the same NV wine out there. If the goal is to simply be able to state the exact wine tasted so others can find the exact same wine then Antonio has accomplished that, but I hope that isn’t his point (and I don’t believe that it is). I don’t believe it can simply be an attempt to focus on specific dates, it has to be a focus on an entire release (the disgorgement date listed with a base vintage is even better). My biggest concern with just listing the disgorgement date is that Champagne has already done research showing that when this particular path is taken, sales fall; you need more than a disgorgement date. Focusing on dates leads to people chasing specific NV disgorgements and ignoring others of the same exact wine. You get some of these same problems when you list the cuvee/release/base vintage and the disgorgement date, but you get more benefit.
Whenever possible (which grows greater each month), I include disgorgement dates with my tasting notes, but even more so, I add on the base vintage to the title of the wine to differentiate different NV cuvee releases. As we all know, the problem is that even if I and others can get this information, many consumers often can’t. Champagne should be embarrassed about this and they should be called out. They have been numerous times going back decades and I’m glad Antonio is doing it again.
I stand by my point that it would be more valuable to push for some type of cuvee differentiator on NV blends. Disgorgement dates are nice, but they don’t accomplish the point for NV wines like they do for Vintage wines.
Then again maybe I am crazy, misunderstanding the situation, and just plain out of touch.