ahhhhh, that’s much better. You can definitely find a lot of Special Clubs in that range that would offer up aging potential. They won’t necessarily be on a 15+ year trajectory, but there are a lot that will be wonderful between 10-18 years. Some like the Gimmonet Single towns are over $100, but there are many like Marc Hebrart, Vazart-Coquart, Gaston Chiquet, Henri Goutorbe, etc that will provide a lot of joy and ability to age.
I would also be on the lookout for Marguet’s single vineyard wines. They are new, so we don’t know what the long-term aging potential actually will be, but I don’t see how all of the 12s I tasted won’t get to 15 years easily.
“They” [whoever “they” are] say that Jose Michel’s pure Pinot Meunier wines can age forever.
I’ve never had an old bottle of Jose Michel Pinot Meunier, but the young bottles tasted like extract of pine sap, as though there were some sort of whole clustering at work.
Funny, I just had bottles of '96 Gimonnet Fleurons and '98 Gimonnet Oenophile last night. While neither was profound, they were both enjoyable and still had a few years left to them.
Vintage Pol Roger Brut and their vintage BdB from good vintages will age for decades. Recently had the '90 Brut which out of 750ml is fully mature but still in its mature prime as well as the '71 BdB which is fully mature but for my palate in a perfect place. Current vintages should both be around your price ceiling.
I bought each of these for cellaring. I also bought MV Krug Grande Cuvée. Eric Lebel, Krug’s chef de caves, said if he could only drink one wine, that would be the one. I picked up as much of the 164 eme as I could, but buy some of each release.
Vilmart Coeur de Cuvée and Grand Cellier d’Or were a bargain a few years ago, but are still fairly priced for the quality.
Cristal has always been extraordinary, but their last few releases have been truly remarkable (IMO). While they’re a big house, they mostly farm organically or biodynamically, and all the vintage Champagnes are entirely estate wines.
All of these are relative values, despite some being expensive. Compared to age-worthy blue-chip wines from other regions (including Bordeaux, Burgundy, Piedmont, and even the Northern Rhone) they are all a bargains.
The '08 Dom was a steal under $150 at the state store in PA a few months back. I picked up as much as I could to cellar for the long term. In general it seems like the 08 was such a good vintage, across the board it should have staying power.
Careful with this assumption. The acidity from 1996 will live a long time in most wines, but a lot of the wines that are a majority Pinot Noir are already on the downslope as the fruit matured too quickly due to picking before phenolic ripeness. The best 1996s are awesome and many Blanc de Blancs may live forever, but, across the board, the vintage is not ever going to live up to its initial expectations. 2008 is not as good for Chardonnay as 1996 and is primarily a Pinot year with the Meunier doing a tad bit better than the Noir. The best 2008s are not going to be as good as the best 1996s, but in general, you are not going to get the disappointments with Pinot in 2008 like you will with 1996. Where you will get a mess in 2008 is with wines done in oak without malolactic fermentation, little to no dosage, and lack of sulfur (especially with Chardonnay). There really wasn’t enough common sense or education to handle this appropriately in 2008 especially in terms of waiting for ripeness. Some going in this direction got it right, but not many.
Just as 1995 is more even as a vintage than 1996 and is a safer bet across the board, 2009 is the same when compared to 2008 IMO.
2009 and 2008 are funny vintages. I remember tasting them both right after harvest and falling in love with the potential of 2008 and the purity is showed. In comparison the 2009s seemed rather ordinary and lacking structure even though the numbers on paper said 2009 should have a similar structure to 2008. In the spring after the 2008 harvest, I noticed some 2008s that didn’t undergo malolactic and were aged in oak acting a bit weird and a few folks in Champagne said they were not as happy with 2008 as they were right after harvest. In 2010, quite a few winemakers told me to wait and see on 2009 as they saw something special developing, but with 2009, the economy had tanked so a lot of folks had any decision on making a vintage taken out of their hands. Clarity wasn’t really there initially with the 2009s but by 2011-2012 some started speaking of 2009 as possibly being equal or even better. I didn’t believe it, but as the wines rolled out over the following years, I became a believer.
In general, over time, I have downgraded 2008 and upgraded 2009, but still give a slight edge to 2008 due to the success of the top wines (especially the Pinot Meuniers, Pinot Noirs, and Roses). Also, I really love 2008 especially as a base vintage in a blend, but you are dealing with mostly potential and hope with a lot of the pure vintage wines. They may become great and they may not. With 2009, the wines are already almost great and have the potential to be just as great as 2008 IMO. If everything develops 100% as everyone wants it to, 2008 will hands down be a better vintage than 2009, but odds say it won’t and things will be much more complicated. What I really wish for is that everyone made a prestige blend of 2009 and 2008 because that would have the potential to really be something legendary. The vintages really compliment each other.
Of course, I actually think 2012 is better than either of 2008 and 2009 (which are both better than 2002) and is the best vintage of this century so far, but lots will disagree with me.
Clicquot knocked it out of the park with all their 2008s. Sticking to this thread’s topic, both the Blanc and Rose Vintage from Clicquot are great values, are under $80, and will age for another 20+ years. As for the Grande Dame, it is a really good wine that is only going to get better. Very different than other recent (or non-recent) vintages with it lovely berry profile, it should age well and start peaking in 15 or so years with a long life after that. It is well worth the price though I will add that the Rose Grande Dame is even better and competes for the wine of the vintage though it is almost twice as expensive. If you find a good deals on any 2008 Clicquots, stock up as they are going to be good for many, many years to come.
You must like krug 165 then which has big dollops of both 09 and 08 iirc; I heard they held back quite a bit of 08 bc of the financial crisis so the 165 LB has quite a bit.
I do prefer the 165 to 164. Both are great, but the brightness of the 165 grabs me more. The financial crisis really hit Krug in 2009 so future releases (like 166eme) will get plenty of both 2008 and 2009 in the blend. 2012 was a smaller harvest and things still weren’t quite right business-wise so almost all of the wine (no vintage made) went to the Grande Cuvee as base or future reserve. I have only had it as a still wine, but the 168eme (2012 base) should be awesome.
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