Has anyone had any recent bottlings of LP’s Grand Siècle? Thoughts? Thanks.
had it at a tasting back in December. It was one of the more compelling wines of the tasting. Larger style with good deal of complexity. Very good mousse and good autolytics on nose and palate. I was hard for me to determine how it would progress over time as I had a tiny plastic tasting champagne flute.
Michael,
A very underrated and no longer a much talked about wine. I have never had a bad release. It almost always drinks well young and ages great. Sometimes it goes dumb in the mid-term so unless I am specifically checking in for a data point I tend to drink them for a few years after release and then let them sleep, but each release is different.
My only complaint is that they are constantly moving the price of the wine up and down. Sometimes it is a downright steal and sometimes twice the price it was a few months before. If the price is right this is a buy regardless of which release it is.
Costco here has it for $95 a bottle. Buy?
At that price, yes. Even if its not a top MV L-P blend, it’s still going to be excellent stuff.
With the possible exception of Krug, there seems to be a bias towards expensive MV Champagnes. Thanks to all for the feedback.
Had it at the Big Sur wine festival, the newest release. I expected blah, I was blown away.
Bill,
Yes, a strong buy at $95.
Michael,
There really aren’t many (or any) MV Champagnes in a way that I define MV. To me, an MV is a wine that is made from a blend of years that the producer also declared and released a vintage wine in. Additionally, they keep the best from those vintage years for the MV blend. This said, the truth is, no wine actually meets my definition as even Grand Siecle has included wines from years where L-P didn’t release a vintage wine. The best of the best always goes into Grand Siecle, but every now and then there isn’t enough quality and quantity in a year to keep wine for both the vintage and Grand Siecle. L-P has kept the best from a year all for the Grand Siecle and sent the rest to the NV wines without releasing a vintage. Cattier’s Clos du Moulin is similar with even more non-declared years in the blend and Lanson’s Extra Age tries to portray itself as an MV, but really isn’t much different from many NVs.
As a side note, Krug has actually stopped referring to Grande Cuvee as an MV and is back to calling it an NV or, really, just Grande Cuvee based on year xxxx.
Cool. Hopefully the lurkers don’t beat me to them.
I just obtained the latest release. The only identifying mark is: NM 235-003. LP’s site doesn’t seem to provide a way to ID the vintages used for the release. Anyone have any relevant information regarding this? Thanks.
Michael,
This is a moving target, but the last release I had (from about 9 months ago) was a blend of 2004/2002/1999 and it was awesome. I know this was current and fairly new at the time, but I will also note that at the same time this was on sale, you could also find the 1999/2000/2002 blend (especially in the US) which was also damn good. There may be a more recent blend than 2004/2002/1999, but I have not had it. There is no easy way to tell what it is in a bottle without emailing the winery with your bottle code and hoping for a response (about a 5% chance from what I have heard). If you taste at the winery or at a tasting sponsored by the winery, they tell you, but other than that, you are often out of luck. Some regional/country heads of Laurent-Perrier will also tell you, but they will often admit that even they are not always certain. Library releases of older blends do state the years, but not current releases. Don’t ask me why. Makes no sense and even most L-P will say so.
Thanks much, Brad.