I think Bouchard did well too, for the most part. There are certainly good wines made in 15, for sure. The big houses, especially, though, are not worth buying.
I didn’t. I bought what was available. I am unaware of 08/12/13 being on the market and if they are, I doubt they are the same price as the 2015.
So the point here really is that a delicious wine was made in 2015 and it was worth the money. I don’t understand why the naysayers on the thread have a problem with that.
People have noted that the Burgundy threads are not very inviting to lurkers or people who don’t have tons of experience. The exact same could be said about Champagne threads.
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Come to think of it, I have had 2015 Egly-Ouriet, Marie Courtin, Doyard, and Larmandier Bernier and they were all thoroughly enjoyable. Maybe my problem is that I only buy great producers? To say that 2015 is a lesser vintage sort of invalidates my experience. And how could I honestly know that it was a lesser vintage unless I actually bought and tasted the wines personally? I don’t go to events.
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So I think the vintage discussion is a bit different when it comes to champagne, especially big house champagne, when compared to still wines.
The big houses often don’t make their prestige cuvées in every vintage, and indeed, they’re supposed to be reserved for the best vintages.
Furthermore, for a long time, there was an attempt at homogeneity when it came to their wines, and there’s certainly homogeneity when it comes to prices, at least on release.
So with that being the background, I find it hard to spend essentially the same cost for say, 2015 Cristal when compared to the outstanding 2012 and 2013. In fact, one could make the argument that they shouldn’t even have declared the vintage if the wine isn’t that good.
I think with growers, it’s a bit different, especially when they’re only using the vintage as a base and not all of the blend is necessarily from that vintage.
With still wines, one can make the argument for avoiding vintages that you know you’ll likely dislike, like 2004 and 2011 red burgundy. I think on the margins, you’ll find good wines even from not the best vintages, such as 2013 Rousseau, or 1997 Jadot. There’s also usually a significant delta from the best vintages to the worst, whereas, in champagne, such as for 2015 Cristal, there often isn’t.
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I dont disagree that a lot of the big house wines aren’t worth buying in 2015, but I think this is true in about every vintage.
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Ideally big houses wouldn’t make vintage wine in bad vintages. Krug probably does the best with it although they did make a 11, but not 09 or 12.
Agree, all the Cedric Bouchard '15s I have had have been good.
It’s the people, not the wines. I’d be willing to bet many of the offenders in the Burgundy threads are the same offenders in the Champagne threads. I find it pretty easy to ignore the idiots who don’t understand the concept of “opinion”, and would encourage others to find their own way to do the same; if everything else fails, the Ignore function works quite well. 
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I mean, this thread was made in 2022 so there’s a lot of discussion about the vintage.
That all being said, I do think as I said above, that there’s a significant difference between 15 base wines and 15 vintage declared wines. Certainly the ability to blend in reserve wines allows much better wines to be made in lesser vintages while still capturing some of the character.
There is a big difference when talking about vintages, especially in Champagne, between the people who are doing case buys of tete de cuvees and people who buy widely up and down levels and producers. So yeah, if I only regularly bought pallets of top wines I would probably avoid 2015’s.
My personal experience with 2015 wines has been quite mixed. I thought the Bollinger Special Cuvee with L18 codes was quite good in the way they used to be. But then the La Grande Annee is also a very good wine and drinking well already but clearly not quite up to the standards of better vintages for that bottling. So not really a value but I’d drink it quite happily if I found it in a glass anywhere near me.
But then I struggled pretty badly with the Vilmart Emotion and the Dehu Rose de Saignee. Like veggies and Retsina.
Other wines seem to lack the fruit of other vintages. Some wines have been just fine. As alluded to up thread, Champagne has a larger and more complex set of variables than many regions. Big producers can blend from some of the best sites in Champagne, using or leaving what they like. Growers dealing with single sites have to really get the farming just right in some years. Some won’t be able to no matter what they do. And then some lucky ones will have sites that did much better than the average.
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Well stated.
+1.
I had heard Duetz only made this in 375’s because of the vintage? Popped one tonight at a local spot tonight to try and I’m sorry I didn’t buy more. Sure it might not be as good or won’t age as well as better vintages but it is drinking really well right now imo.
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Thanks guys, some really useful info there (wasn’t able to check back for about the last week, due to a work crisis). Seems the only producers people are really positive on in 2015 are Vilmart and Bouchard - should be enough to generate a stock of a few bottles for my daughter’s 18th and 21st. We’ll drink 2015 red wines and German Riesling thereafter 
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I’ve been enjoying most 2015 and 2017(another difficult vintage) based grower Champagnes. To name a few: Vilmart, Egly, Marguet, Stroebel, Bonville, Hure Freres. Miles better than 2018 imo.