No Pierre Peters bottle shot from last night.
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2013 Ayala Le Blanc de Blancs
Medium to fine mousse, bubbles continue to effervesce for a while. Light chalk/minerality, tropical fruit/white fruit/lychee, elegant, a bit of green almond.
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Laherte Ultradition NV Extra Brut
60% PM, 30% Chard, 10% PN. 4.5 dosage. 10/20 Disgorgement. 12.5% booze.
I am quite new to Champagne and have nothing insightful or even interesting to say about this wine. It gets lots of love on this board. Beautiful, slightly bronze color. Mild in the bubbles department, which I prefer. Delicious. Cheap for Champagne. If you told me that this is as good as Champagne gets, Iâd say âHell, yeah!â Iâm not a baller. Lots of producers make a âtraditionâ reflecting method and blend. I guess Ultradtion is the Laherte term for this.
âAll roads lead to Champagne.â We have all heard that. Itâs a bunch of bullshit, right?
So I offer a tiny story of a berserkerâs evolution. Iâve been drinking wine for 37 years. For the first 32, wine had to be red, preferably Italian, ideally Nebbiolo. Five years ago, I âdiscoveredâ white wine which now composes the majority of all purchases and consumption. About six months ago, three dear friends somewhat independently took my pudgy little hand and led me towards Champagne. Agrapart was involved. Iâve since bought five cases of Champagne (NV QPR stuff mostly). Weâve drank four bottles this month, which was more than Iâd drank during the first 36 years. Some of us are slower than others.
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Iâm not drinking any bubbly tonight - probably tomorrow. But in the meantime I thought Iâd drop some knowledge that I recently acquired about Champagne that had me confused. Itâs all about the Cru system there.
Most of us are familiar the the Bordeaux system of Crus ClassĂ©s and itâs sibling from St. Emilion. In those cases, most ChĂąteaux farm the same plot of land and so the Cru level of the wine goes with the ChĂąteau. Leaving aside the fact that it was decided based on wine prices in 1855, this is supposed to reflect the quality of each houseâs wines. Obviously YMMV.
Then move on to Burgundy, where itâs entirely vineyard based. Doesnât mater who makes the wine, the classification only comes via the vineyard. Some plots of land are directly adjacent to others and have Grand Cru or 1er Cru status while the vineyard next door remains unclassified. This system is obviously centred around the idea that terroir is all that matters. Obviously, again, YMMV.
Champagne, though, doesnât quite think either of these methods of identifying âsuperiorâ wines is the best way. They use a system based solely on the village/commune where the grapes were sourced. Doesnât matter which vineyard (sometimes called a lieu-dit) so long as youâre located inside the boundaries of the village. You may have heard that a good 1er Cru Champagne can be better than a mediocre Grand Cru, and this seems like at least a partial explanation. With many different grape growers and plantings within each village it shouldnât be surprising that some are better than others. So then, of the roughly 80% of Champagne villages that arenât classified as being in the 1er or Grand Cru level, that means at least some of them are growing great grapes and making great wine, right? To me, this also means that pricing is less linked to the Cru level than one might expect in, say, Bordeaux. And indeed thatâs what you see in Champagne, where you have well constructed Champagnes without a Cru designation being just as well regarded as some Grand Cru bottles. Take the RWC Mesnil in Bobâs post above - itâs from the Grand Cru village of Mesnil-sur-Oger but the pricing locally for me is around $40. Hardly the tariff something like Krug or any of the major housesâ tĂȘte de cuvĂ©es fetch, many of which are not Cru-designated.
So in short, the Cru system is, um, weird.
Hereâs a link with bit more information: https://thechampagnesociety.com.au/2017/07/03/champagne-premier-cru-vs-grand-cru/
Tasting note coming (hopefully) tomorrow, and in time to take advantage of FMIIIâs bonus offer!
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NV Ruinart Champagne Brut Rosé - France, Champagne (12/31/2021)
Boisterously fruity and decidedly sweet. It was a crowd pleaser, but not a style I prefer. I have become too used to more restrained sweetness, and this one was beyond what I was looking for. Well made, but not my thing.
Posted from CellarTracker
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2012 Dom Perignon
A bit of flint and yellow peaches on the nose.
Granite, white grape, and lemon on the nose with richness and focus on the palate. Super length. This is great, may give 08 a run for its money. Went back for a couple more cases!
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I loves me some Bollinger and the Special Cuvee can be good with age. These were a bit past but good for us geeks. Hard to honestly say whether these were not stored properly or if they are merely the product of a weaker vintage. Fun birthday and partial New Year wine in any case.
![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
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NV Bollinger Champagne Special Cuvée Brut - France, Champagne (12/31/2021)
L807805. So looks like an '08 disgorgement making it likely base 2005. Picked a couple bottles of this at auction. They have shown consistently to each other. Likely these were not stored in ideal wine integrity conditions. That said these were not dead. Just not as good as a Bollinger can be when left to itself. Plenty of copper color. Bubbles are probably what you might expect for a NV bottling of this age. Clearly reduced but not gone. Nougat, caramel and citrus nose in a fat way. The palate is a bit hollow but still bright. Good acidity. The dosage is not totally integrated but on its way. This drinks ok for those of us patient with older wines. Outside of that narrow audience folks would be disappointed. Not complex enough to really make this delightful but drinks âfineâ. A bit of coffee ground like sediment in the last pour.
Posted from CellarTracker
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Well, I donât know what this will get me, but I am wearing a tux; this is our small covid quarantine group ⊠I forgot to do the Leo pose, but we all ran upstairs, changed really quick, Gageâs girlfriend even grabbed a dress from Julie and posed for this shot! The wine was a spectacular Vilmart 2012 Emotion. This was a gorgeous, red fruited beauty, that was full, generous, with a hint of citrus, and plenty of mineral. Crisp, popping, and delicious! We had Astrea caviar and smoked Scottish salmon, and two pieces of Flannery, that my son pan seared, as part of our Covid hodgepodge dinner. It was a great night, all things considered!
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NV Chartogne-Taillet Champagne Cuvée Sainte Anne - France, Champagne (12/31/2021)
June 2018 disgorgement from âmostly 2015â per the back label, this showed none of the grassy character that shows in some 2015-based Champagnes. It was precise, maybe a touch too linear, but still with good depth as it reached the mid-palate. With our very rich Crab Imperial main course the precision of the wine was an asset, cutting through the richness of the dish. Good value from a fine grower who is a house favorite.
Posted from CellarTracker
And a little Champagne knowledge, courtesy of Peter Liemâs excellent book on Champagne. Chartogne-Taillet is based in Merfy in the area known as the Massif de Saint-Thierry. There are areas in Merfy with significant sand over the chalk soils, allowing for some older, ungrafted vines. This is the source of Chartogneâs Les Barres, which is ungrafted Pinot Meunier planted in 1952!
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Well the âballerâ bottle just exceeded your $175 price tag. A bottle of 2007 Taittinger rose, and drinking beautifully. Midnight was a Zoom meeting with an old friend and his friends. Very different from the way we celebrated last year. I would have gone to bed early, but I just wanted to be sure this crappy year was truly over.
The Champagne itself is pure Taittinger, a combination of lightness, full flavors, precision and intensity. The wild strawberry aromas are supplemented with mineral and rose petals. Medium, long finish. Only thing missing was a few dim sum Shui Mai and soup dumplings.
Some technical stuff lifted from the Taittinger web site
Comtes de Champagne RosĂ© is only produced when the qualitative criteria exist to faithfully preserve the cuveeâs signature style. Comprised of 30% Chardonnay Grands Crus from the most prestigious CĂŽte des Blancs terroirs combined with 70% Pinot Noir sourced from the Montagne de Reims Grands Crus, this blend is enhanced with 15% red wine from Bouzy Pinots, whose somewhat long pre-maceration fermentation ensures a superb tannic structure with fruit- forward aromas of red and black berries. Before being exposed to light, Comtes de Champagne RosĂ© 2007 will have undergone more than 10 years of ageing in the heart of the Saint-Nicaise chalk cellars dating from Gallo-Roman times; a maturation that guarantees the complexity of the wineâs aromas.
There will be a photo later when the sleeping kitten currently residing on my knees gets up.
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I didnât drink as well as the rest of you. Celebrated at home with another couple, who we went on vacation with to Traverse City. None of the four of us are big sparkling people, but seemed like the appropriate time.
2020 Shady Lane, Sparkling Riesling
Not bone dry; just a little off-dry. Definitely tastes like Riesling. Not a lot of bubbles. Had a weird cider flavor. I enjoy this little winery in TC, but this was not my favorite wine from them.
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Happy new year everyone. I hope you all had a great time last night, whatever you chose to do. I had Brig and his wife over, along with my buddy Paul and his wife. We had 4 Champagnes open, so Iâll post two now, and then later when I can retaste the leftovers from the other two, I will post those as well.
I also offer a photo below, and I will use the Vilmart as my baller qualifier. I paid $130 for my bottles but I know there are multiple offers on that wine at $175 at a # of stores so I humbly request baller qualification for it. As for the Dom, that was brought by Paul and I know he paid $179 for that one so that gets the big payout, too!
As for the knowledge requirement, letâs go with the topic of dosage. This is the sugar/wine mixture (sometimes referred to as the âliqueur dâexpeditionâ) that is added as a top off once disgorgement takes place. Producers have a choice to make about dosage: how much should be added, if any at all. For example, I buy, follow and passionately support Dominique Moreau of MARIE COURTIN, who uses no dosage in her cuvees. Her wines can take on a sterner impression, and the lack of dosage certainly helps to manifest that sensation but she also gets fruit into her biodynamic wines, where the end product is energy, brightness and purity. On the other hand, letâs take VILMART, who is one of my very best favorites in all of Champagne. Laurent Champsâ (I think 4th generation running the winery now) wines almost always have a level of dosage around 6-8 grams. Yet, in his wines is a consistent richness from the organic fruit he farms so what consistently results is a wine that is powerfully rich, yet with a laser beam of acidity cutting through it, super low pH along with an impression of chalk. These are two examples, one without dosage, one with it. Yet, both making fantastic versions of grower champagne, with the dosage decision affecting the intent and result of the wines.
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2010 Dom PĂ©rignon Champagne - France, Champagne (1/1/2022)
On opening and while it tempered some with air, there is a distinct woody/smoke aromatic to this wine, and I called it âaggressiveâ in my notes. The profile on this seems tropical to me, with pineapple, mango, finishing chalky and a bit rough. The wine did smooth out some with the additional air it received. -
2012 Vilmart & Cie Champagne Premier Cru Rosé Emotion - France, Champagne, Champagne Premier Cru (1/1/2022)
Disgorged January 2018, 60/40 PN/Chard. My 4th bottle from 2021, this bottle showed well. Cantaloupe, fresh strawberry, citrus and nectarine. The weight on this is squarely middle, this evolved with air. Later on retasting, the green apple is evident, with red fruits (mainly strawberry and raspberry with cherry now emerging), the finish fresh and vibrant. Really good.
Posted from CellarTracker
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Our bubbly was '02 and '08 Cristal and we had '90 Haut Brion with dinner. The '02 was a bit more advanced than I expected, although I do see there is a lot of bottle variation per the notes on CT. This was all butterscotch and caramel upon opening, like a liquid Wertherâs original. By the 2nd hour, notes of lemon, brioche, carob and clove came to the forefront. Last time I had this was at a lunch 2018 and ironically I had '08 at the same lunch. The '08 was spectacular as always, my 2nd favorite Champagne of the vintage behind the rosĂ©.
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You want Baller? On this particular occasion the clear winner was '02 Comptes de Champagne. Overcome by fresh baked toasty Brioche, followed by juicy tart citrus cart upset, morphing into savory herbs and exotic spices, then closing with a long, lucious finish thatâs just now retreating. Not a dog in the bunch and on any given day, who knows which wine might take the title.
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Hereâs a blah blah blah!
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NV Chartogne-Taillet Champagne Cuvée Sainte Anne - France, Champagne (1/1/2022)
This was lovely, it has a sense of crystalline purity, with mineral, and tart white peach and nectarine! Itâs delicious⊠There are so many great Champagnes being made now!!! Disgorged 2/21 (93 pts.)
Posted from CellarTracker
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S Teve R,
Thatâs sick!!
Two Selosse just for filler? LOL
Impressive
BrigâŠfull disclosure. That amazing champagne lineup was from New Yearâs Day 2020. Four years in succession my wife and I hosted an open house on New Years Day for 10-12 folks with the only âruleâ nothing but champagne. Covid brought this wonderful tradition to a full stop. Once this plague passes over us, itâs back to bigger and better lineups. Iâm happily and quietly building the next blowout. Iâve found this an expensive but very effective way of learning about Champagne. I say damn the expense; full speed ahead.
I seem to get a lot of half-filled bottles, too. 
Post a pic of that bad boy, as I think it qualifies as a baller bubbly!
That is some good knowledge. Thanks!
That sounds delicious.
You are a true baller, sir!