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** - France, Champagne (12/3/2022)
Marketing 101. This NV is terrible for the money. $60? Candied fruit, minerality, dough and floral notes. Short finish and lacks complexity. The Charles Heidsieck Brut Reserve is far superior for half the price. (84 points)
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Heidsieck is only $30 in the US? That’s amazing, way more in Europe. I’d be backing up the truck for sure.
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You knew that going in… what were the circumstances that made you pay the asking price.
This!
Although I wouldn’t categorically trash NV VC; Veuve Clicquot has consciously improved quality the past decade and I have been surprised by some rather good NV VC, but it has probably been dependent upon the base year and whether or not the bottle has rested a year or more after dégorgement (but that can be said about almost any NV). I am also impressed how the Maison maintains it’s signature taste note of orange. $60?! Perhaps for a magnum, but no way in heaven, hell or earth for 750 ml.
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I never buy these types of wines but will always try them for free at local tastings. People love named brands as the picture shows the top empty.
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What a wasteful, clickbait thread.
Veuve Cliquot has improved in quality over the past decade or so, as a poster above also notes, and provides a consistent, rich, fairly high brut dosage champagne. It is a style that borders on Piper Heidsieck’s Extra Dry, though is a bit better in my opinion. It is generous, and moderately complex, and far better than an 84, at least by my champagne scoring.
Ensuring all who read your note know you’re just blowing smoke, you suggest Charles Heidsieck is half the price of VC. In reality, the two are typically comparably priced. A brief web search shows that at Total Wine, VC is $50, where CH is $55.
But really, posts like this are why people hate wine snobs, and why folks often feel insecure drinking wines they enjoy around “oenophiles”. You’ve taken a fairly well made and no poor quality champagne and made a clearly biased judgment call about how atrocious it is, and then laughed at the dumb-dumbs who buy such a wine instead of seeking out a much smaller production champagne that you wrongly suggest is waaaay cheaper, intending to magnify the stupidity of those who buy and drink VC.
Poor play.
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“These types of wines.”
Wait until you learn how many bottles of Dom Perignon get churned out, and hear about all the idiot rubes who buy them instead of Millenaires for half the price.
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How is it the same price when my local wine shop has it for $30 on sale. Every market is different. You really think $60 for Veuve is a good deal? I think it is over rated and a name brand and many others I tasted it with thought the same thing. Apparently we can’t review wines in our own terms and have to follow yours. Don’t waste your time replying.
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Sure the bottle you tried wasn’t on its third day open? And some random liquor store liquidating stock of Heidsieck below wholesale cost does not a market make. Just more bullshit.
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Taste that shit blind. There will be many fewer haters.
I’ve tasted blind 3 times (?) and it never wowed me but it doesn’t suck.
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I like the Grande Dame. Haven’t had the “lesser” wines since 96. Never bought (though have tried) yellow label. There were always better values to buy.
Grande Dame came in 2nd for me once in a pretty stellar blind lineup of 10 Champagnes. Let’s not forget that LVMH also owns Krug and Ruinart and there’s great pedigree there, but the yellow label is simply for the name brand crowd when many better grower Champagnes are available for around the same price.
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Which wine shop and do they ship? That’s an amazing price,
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VC wholesales for $67 in Delaware and $61 the Heidsieck for $61, so really depends on where you are.
As the immortal Roberto Rogness his store in Santa Monica had this sign in the window.
: “Friends don’t let friends drink Veuve Clicquot” but this was prior to the increase in quality about 10 years ago.
I’ll chime in and say that VC was pretty lame at one point but did a great job marketing themselves. I can’t tell you how many people showed up at my house with a bottle as a gift. I used to give those bottles to my kids for NYE. They thought they were drinking “fancy” wines.
Then, one day, VC went from $30/btl to $50/btl (It’s now $60/btl thanks to inflation/price gouging). I used to laugh and think there’s no way that I’m paying $50 for that crap when I can get Bereche, Agrapart, Laherte, Moncuit, etc. for cheaper.
But then I talked to some serious Champagne geeks who said that VC had been making a concentrated effort to increase the quality (hence the price jump). I’ve had it within the past year. While I still prefer the grower champagnes I mentioned (and others), VC is no longer a crappy wine. Far from it.
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You can get Agrapart cheaper than $50? I’m so jealous. £70 and up for me….
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Also at those prices was buying Bollinger special cuvée, it was an easy substitute
84 is a B. Not everyone rates wines 93 or higher. Sure it is drinkable but at $60 such an easy pass.
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And about 8 or 9 points higher.
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Wow are you a distributor for Veuve. This is Wine Berserkers not a Facebook page where everyone loves every photo of a random wine.
Go ahead and post your note on it.