TN: 1988 Pol Roger Brut Champagne

WINE TALK
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Beserkers,

A special one-off tasting note from me, this beautiful champagne was poured from a 9 litre salamanazar won in a charity blind auction in 1988 that my friends Linda and John were holding onto to open for their 25th wedding anniversary.

Sadly, John passed away 4 years ago from stomach cancer so Linda invited several of her friends and family up to her summer cottage for a memorial BBQ and champagne ceremony to honor John’s memory with a toast from this special bottle they had been saving all these years.

And what a special bottle it was. There was a lot of concern as to how well this wine would hold up, having sat in the bottom of their wine fridge since 1988 without being moved. The bottle was so large it required her tall brother in law Mike to hold the bottle steady for her on a wine barrel as she popped open the cork stopper. The lovely “POP” sound indicated the carbonation was fully intact so no issues with leaking.

A fine full frothy mousse as it was poured into glasses with a rich but not dark golden color. Lovely aromas of butterscotch candy, green apple and mushrooms, indicating the yeasty flavor has probably integrated quite well as I get no usual yeasty/toast aromas from the glass I normally get out of sparkling wine and Champagne.

Extremely elegant flavors of green apples, a bit of yeast, almonds and honey with extremely well balanced. Very close to a liquid dried apple granola bar, actually, though nowhere near as sweet. This was a perfect champagne and a great way to toast the memory of a great friend who will be missed. I now have the same appreciation for aged champagne that I do for aged Vintage Port. You just can’t go back to drinking the younger stuff after that and are compelled to let your bottles age.


25 people took part in the celebration and even going back for seconds, we barely made a dent in the bottle, with the liquid level line just below the top foil and label. I’d say we polished off 1 1/2 litres of the 9 altogether in the salamanazar. Hope Linda invited the rest of the neighborhood because if those 7 1/2 litres weren’t drunk, the only other thing that could be done with the leftover wine is make popsicles in a Zoku out of them a la Charlie Fu. HIGHLY, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
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Several things:

  1. How does a 9l of Champagne fit on the bottom of a wine fridge? How big is that wine fridge??
  2. Lesson learned, the hard way, to enjoy life and live it to its fullest, as you never know when you won’t be able to enjoy the things you are saving for later
  3. I’m guessing it was, indeed, a very lovely wine. I’m sure John was honored en absentia.
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@Todd: The fridge was actually quite tall as it nearly touched the ceiling of the one-story cottage but it was only about the width of a regular kitchen fridge, more or less. It turns out that there the shelves in the fridge were removable and the bottle was laying diagonally on the bottom of the fridge. As soon as Mike and I pulled out the monster bottle, Linda went and grabbed the dusty shelves from her basement, wiped them clean with a damp cloth, and placed them right back in the fridge! There was space for two more full racks of wine bottles plus the bottom of the fridge which could presumably be used to stand up or lay down even more bottles.

Interestingly, Linda informed me that she and John have had it since the early 80’s and have never had a problem EVER with it and it still runs just fine. I could not see a brand name on the wine fridge and was curious to know what it was due to all the threads of wine fridges blowing on people that have been posted on the board. I’ll have to remember to ask her what it was.

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Cool story and a great way to celebrate the life of a friend.