I have been trying a fair amount of Champagne from the large houses of late since they are suddenly to be found everywHere for between $20.00-$27.00.
In the the past couple of weeks I’ve had the entry level bottles from:
Mumms
Perrier Jouet
Nicholas Feuillatte
Taittinger
Kirkland
I have been Underwhelmed by all virtually all these bottles. They were fun wines and easy to drink but none of them were complex or especially interesting. The exception here was a single bottle of the Kirkland and a single bottle of Taittinger that appeared to have a little bit of bottle age on them. Those two wines were colored brown and had developed some more complex aromas and flavors of nuts, toffee, and brown sugar in addition to the citrus and apple fruit that the other wines were dominated by. I found these wines much more compelling. If I was to buy all these wines again while they are still relatively inexpensive and cellar them for 18-24 months, is it safe to assume they would develop similarly? How come such evolution happens so fast with Champagne? It takes a lot longer then two years for most of my wine to start developing Tertiary flavors and aromas.