Glad this showed well for you!
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Very impressive wines to be sure!
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Event similar experiences with Selosse rose.
Recent?
Oops typo. I bought two or three bottles at the same time from the same source. They were all over the place. I really didn’t like two of them and one was pretty good. (I edited this because I found my note)
I buy and drink Egly-Ouriet Rose for 25% the cost of Selosse. Where does Selosse get his Pinot Noir for rose? Reportedly, from Francis Egly. Selosse sends barrels to Egly, who fills them with Pinot, which are then aged by Selosse and incorporated with Chardonnay to make rose.
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Including mountain jamboree where Selosse rose was just kinda there, outshined by the rest of the big hitters.
Curious to hear if anyone else has had this disgorgement and also found it lighter than usual …
NV Paul Bara Champagne Grand Cru Grand Rosé - France, Champagne, Champagne Grand Cru (11/24/2025)
– popped and poured –
– tasted non-blind over approx. 1 hr. –
– disgorgement: June 2024 –
Nose is chalky and lightly red-fruited. Light body. On the palate there is some lovely spice notes intermixed with frothy chalky red berry flavors. Much lighter and more elegant than usual for this bottling.
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NV Olivier Horiot Champagne Cuvée Soléra Brut Nature - France, Champagne (11/24/2025)
– popped and poured –
– tasted non-blind over 2 hrs. –
– all 7 permitted varieties included in the cepage –
– bottled: Sept. 13, 2021 –
– disgorged: September 26, 2022 –
– dosage: {none}
NOSE: quite lovely and giving: notes of ginger, baked carrots, and buttery apple.
BODY: rich, orange-inflected golden yellow color; slow, loose bead; {forgot to note weight – by memory, I’d call it medium-light to medium}
TASTE: certainly showing some developed character – bruised green apple, gentle warm baking spices, and a touch gueuze-like. This tastes moderately mature to my palate. I like this, but a bit less than bottles I had back in 2023 and 2024 as such, for me, this is best to Drink Now.
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Note-taking has not been my forte recently… Hopefully going to get back into it in the New year! This post is full of Rosé:
NV Jean Laurent Rosé
I visited Jean Laurent over the summer on a little road trip through the Cote de bar and chatted at length with Jean Laurent. It was a lovely visit. The champagnes tend towards a more traditional style; some bottlings have quite a bit of dosage. The “classic” bottlings are available in France with and without dosage, but I have not seen the zero-dosage rosé stateside. In any case, this 100% PN rosé has approx 9g/L of dosage, but to be honest, I don’t remember the exact number. Limpid cranberry color, assertive cherry flavor, maybe some super ripe strawberry. I struggled to describe it, it comes across as a muscular and showy rosé, though not necessarily vinous. If you prefer more restrained champagne, skip this. If you like zero dosage, skip skip skip. I thought it went really well with my spicy chicken stir-fry and I can see how it would do well with spicy and/or sweet/sour foods.
Not a champagne, but a delightfully silly sparkling rosé that I carried back from Vienna:
NV Esterházy Quinquin Sparkling Rosé
I may have mentioned this wine in a prior post. The QuinQuin Rosé is sold at (one of the many) Esterhazy palace, so it’s a crowd-pleasing, easy style. I purchased it at the duty free in Vienna. 100% blaufrankisch from the Esterhazy estate. Added carbonation. The pale pink-salmon color is festive, the sweet berry flavor made me smile, and all I wanted to do was get back on a plane to Austria and eat more Viennese cake. It doesn’t have a lot of acidity or a long finish, but it’s also only 12-13 Euros
.
2008 Alfred Gratien Rosé Cuvée Paradis
63% chardonnay, 37% pinot noir, dosage 3g/L, no malo. I think it was disgorged in 2023, but not sure anymore.
Gaudy bottle wrapping that rips easily, making it look cheap. Pale pink. I saw a lot of flattering descriptions of this rosé, saying that it was complex, vinous, etc. etc. I got peach, strawberry, lemon and a short finish. It tastes fresh, but the complexity was missing for me. It won’t upset anybody. I liked it OK, but “like” is as far as it went. I have another bottle, so perhaps my opinion will change on the next one.
2010 Drappier Grande Sendée Rosé
80% PN, 20% chard, 4g/L dosage. Beautiful salmon pink color that is not reflected in the picture (bad lighting). Classic brioche nose, and something vaguely floral. Raspberries, strawberries, yellow peach, blood orange, long finish. Nice balance between acidity and fruit. Don’t have much of a description unfortunately, but I enjoyed this Drappier much more than the Gratien.
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Your absence was noticed, your presence missed, and your return celebrated. 
You bringing FMIII with you?
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The ’96 BdN was outstanding. It may be the only wine I’ve seen Brad Baker call a perfect bottle. I drank the last of my case eight years ago.
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NV Louis Dumont Champagne Brut
Bought this at a local wine shop while on vacation in North Carolina for $42. 90% Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir and the rest Chardonnay. Medium yellow color. Moderate bead. This tasted like it had a little age on the bottle but it was well rounded and very nice. Fuller body. Notes of lemons, toast and pears. 90 points.
VM
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I have had a few of these Gratien. I find they show as you describe until they warm to approximately 60 degrees. I opened my last bottle from the fridge and didn’t touch it for 90 minutes and it was the best showing so far. I too am a little let down by the lack of expected complexity, but expect the next one will have more of a wow factor if not over chilled.
NV Louis Roederer Champagne Collection 242 - France, Champagne (11/27/2025)
– popped and poured –
– tasted a couple pours non-blind over a couple hours –
– magnum –
Dark brass color. Moderately expressive, with chalky lemon, on the Nose. Medium-light bodied on the developing palate: very dry, chalky, charred lemon, and a little bit toasty. Excellent, and drinking well now, but probably still has room to improve even further from here. Drink or Hold.
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2019 Marguet Champagne Grand Cru Chouilly - France, Champagne, Champagne Grand Cru (11/30/2025)
– popped and poured –
– tasted non-blind over 8.5 hrs. –
– 100% Chardonnay –
– tirage: June 26, 2020 –
– disgorgement: February 2024 –
– dosage: {none} –
NOSE: buttery; rich apple, with hint of oxidized character.
BODY: medium golden yellow color; fine-bubbled, medium-tight, bead; light bodied.
TASTE: obviously very dry, but still with rich fruit (apple); pretty straightforward: tasty, but not complex. For my preferences, best to Drink Now.
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Extracted from a thread just posted: 4 wines tasted blind at dinner: 2000 Pol Roger Sir Winston Churchill, 2019 Boillot Clos de la Mouchere, 2012 Pio Cesare Barbaresco and 1999 Clerico Percristina Barolo
2000 POL ROGER SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL BRUT- blind; the color was very advanced with some browning yellow gold and the nose also confirmed some oxidative notes with bruised apple, caramel and butterscotch being most evident; on the palate, I got honeyed strawberry and honey dew melon adding some delightful flavors which tended to embellish the taste profile; it finished a little dry as the fruit dissipated a bit; for me, this was about the maximum amount of oxidation that I can tolerate before it gets too overwhelming and the wine becomes like all others that are oxidized; I guessed the vintage to be 1996, the wine to be a brut with more Pinot Noir than Chardonnay and from Laurent- Perrier; the typical blend is comprised of 70-80% Pinot Noir, 20-30% Chardonnay aged 11 years on the lees; this bottle was disgorged June 2012 and dosed at 8 gpl.
Cheers,
Blake
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In a way I am disappointed in this wine! It was too fucking good and I only just got an allocation (2 bottles). Amazing wine and worth the hype. I was kind of hoping it would be merely very good and not really fabulous. Now I am down to one bottle (sighs)
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I hate it when they really are that good. 
My favorite producer.
I’m left with the 9 (?) bottles I have as I’m priced out these days. So glad/sorry you enjoyed it!
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