As I started saying in pt. 1 of this blog, I came to the Montcalm Hotel to taste a vertical of Moët et Chandon Grand Millesime. For all you Moët snobs out there, their vintage offerings are some of the most dramatic and colourful expressions of Champagne that you can buy. Having said that, you have to be prepared to put your money where your mouth is if you want to buy some of the more sublime, rarer offerings, as you will see. (Watch the prices rise as you read down.) Well, it is Champagne. A luxury commodity. No change there. The tasting went something like this…..

Moet & Chandon Grand Vintage 2002 £42.99

The label screams 2002 in 12 foot high fiery white digits. So it should. If you have a wine that is suppose to express the characters of the vintage, then it’s appropriate that the house name is slightly less emboldened on the bottle. This is a rich, figgy fizz, with quincey twangy fruits and an almost confectionary mocha hint to it. Very grand. Very dramatic. It certainly did a better job of waking me up than the tea I’d drank moments before. The dosage was pleasingly low (Apparently 4,5 g/l) Was expecting more. We had a lovely smoked salmon and dill bagel served with it, which wasn’t the finest match, but I could have carried on eating and drinking those two for the rest of the day. Very fine wine, and one that I would love to see in ten years time, as it was far less nervous than some I have tasted from this lovely vintage.

Moet & Chandon Grand Vintage Rosé 2002 £42.99

This wine had delicious haunting notes of Pinot Noir on the nose, dancing between smelling like a light Irancy and a spicy, very fruity Champagne. The palate was loaded with strawberry and plum fruit. This is the ideal spring fizz for a small wedding celebration, with a fool texture and went fairly nicely with a small fruit skewer.

Moet & Chandon Grand Vintage 1995 £64

This is the kind of mature vintage Moët that I love, although it is far from typical for the house. Big savoury baked sourdough and field mushroom-scented nose, with a palate of wonderful cakey richness. Sébastien, Moët’s ambassador, said that it reminded him of sweet baked chocolate cake with a layer of orange jam inside. That’s right. It is a £64 jaffa cake, and non the worse for it.

Moet & Chandon Grand Vintage 1992 £78

Now this one was a keeper. Quite unlike the rich, early maturing ‘92 Burgundies just to Champagne’s south, the well made 1992 vintage bubblies are refined and just reaching their apogee. This was elegant, and perfectly formed. Not quite petite. Sort of 5'5" rather than 5'1", if you catch my drift. It didn’t shout it’s flavours, rather than hum them quietly to itself, with undertones of salted caramel and brioche. If I saw this at a bar, I would ask it out. I could have sat with it all day. It was also served with a roast field mushrom and thyme puff pastry (top left of the picture below). Of which I had five when no one was looking. I blame it on her. Sorry. The Champagne. 

   

Moet & Chandon Grand Vintage 1990 £113.99

Very ripe and biscuity. Appears to be one of the those great rich vintages that are more about extract than acidity, like 76 and 85. Whereas 1995 was almost unrecognisable as M&C, this is a charicature of it. Dry, rich cocoa and dusty spices with a rich melony viscosity, and larger-than-life structure. This was served with smoked haddock kedgeree and a quail’s egg, as above. If you haven’t had kedgeree and Champagne together, you clearly aren’t very posh. It maybe the very reason why you weren’t invited to the tasting. Try it. It’s nice. 

Moet & Chandon Grand Vintage 1975 (magnum) £605

Yes I know. It’s over a monkey. Crikey guvnor! That’s a lot of sausage and mash to spill on a bottle of wine (Sadly there’s no Cockney Rhyming Slang for Champagne. I just looked). And, the first one was Duke of Yorked (made that one up). But the second bottle was quite phenomenal. When Champagne reaches this sort of age, it appears to become fresher again. Apart from the indescribably smooth, polished patina, and the 'spots of light’ miniscule bubbles of this wonderful champagne, lesser mortals might be tricked into thinking that it was from the mid to late eighties. A wonder and a privilege to taste. Would I buy it? Not right now. I have a couple of rather more important things to spend that kind of money on. A dodgy jam jar, so I can go and see me tin lids for instance.

Taittinger?

Nice. I mentioned the House Brut and the Vintage in the second blog post, but I have saved the best till last.

 

If there was ever such thing as a trade secret in the Champagne world, a wine that no one talks about, so that they can keep it for themselves, this is bloody it. The label has changed recently. It used to be a copper bronze. Now it’s apoplexy orange. (Not its official title.) It is made from fruit grown in Taittinger’s most prized vineyard, with is grown in a patchwork, hence the name La Folie de la Marquetterie. It is 50/50 Pinot Chardonnay and half of that Chardonnay has been fermented in used oak casks. This wine is quite unlike anything else that Taittinger makes, but its DNA is stitched right through it. It has the most delightful bead and brightness of colour with a palate that stretches out sideways like a sunset. Pure, linear, rippled, but rounded and broad. A brilliant thing, and one of my favourite Champagnes at any price. Ah. Which reminds me….

I know some top journalists were sent a bottle of this as a Christmas present last year. Lucky them. Also lucky me, because that’s how I got to drink a bottle with someone, and enjoy it in the way that it was intended. I often find myself wondering whether a wine, that is sublime in a mouthful, has the interest to endure for a whole evening. At the prices often charged, I think that this is a real concern. Some though, you wish you could drink forever. Take this chap for instance. This is one of the greatest Chardonnays in the world, and I doubt there are many wine aficionados who would disagree. I have been fortunate enough to have tasted many vintages of this great wine. There are so many sublime examples. 1969, 1971, 1973, 86, 88, 90, 95, the list goes on. What sets this apart from other so-called luxury cuvées, is that, apart from Salon and, arguably, the Chardonnay-dominant Dom Perignon, it’s the only one that relies on Chardonnay. This rendition, the 2000 vintage, is the most forward example of Taittinger Comtes de Champagne that I have come across. Not that it is in any way inferior to the many other vintages that I have tried. It has unbelievable complexity. When I tried it before Christmas it was at a restaurant, where a friend and I had paid a considerable corkage charge to drink it. It was the divinest of aperitifs. It went with my crab starter. It went equally perfectly with our choices of roast curried quail and dover sole meunière with slow cooked chard. Correct me if I’m wrong, but only a wine like this could have matched all our dishes. It was one of the happiest dining experiences I have ever had. I didn’t pay either. Double win. 

That’s not all…..

Justin Llewelyn, Taittinger’s Brand Ambassador, had brought along a preview sample of the 2002 vintage. If you haven’t heard yet, the 2002 vintage in Champagne appears to be very special. If rumours are to be believed, Dom Perignon 2002 was supposed to be quite good. And the examples that I have tasted, Perrier Jouët Belle Epoque, and the gorgeous Bollinger Grande Année, just to name two, have been fantastic. In 'best ever’ territory. They are, however, phenomenally powerful, tight and dense. Toit. Toit like a Toiger.

Looking at how magnificent the Comtes 2000 is to drink, I suspect that the 2002 won’t be properly released until at least half way through the year. I would buy one, then keep it for Christmas 2013. It smells of acacia, magnolia flowers, vanilla orchid and lime blossom. The wine arm-wrestles with your tongue at the moment, but is already showing incredible finesse. Can’t wait to taste it for a proper appraisal in a year or two.

Next up was the Laurent-Perrier table, where they showed off their most famous offerings, including a wine I adored as a child, and one my father loves too. This is their Laurent-Perrier Ultra Brut, a completely bone-dry satiny wine with a miniscule mousse, in a handsome blue and silver livery. I have to confess that I felt that it had lost its dazzling precision in bottlings over the past five years, but this? This was immaculate. Like a gleaming white laser. Long and dry, with a cool exterior, and a unsmiling, poker-faced finish. Which really is what it’s all about. I was craving a plate of crab gratin. Something I had eaten with it, with my father, when I was younger. I’ll never forget it.

The LP boys and girls had brought along a treat (See below).     

Everyone who is familiar with bars or wine will know that Laurent-Perrier Rosé is the most popular pink Champagne in the world. It is made using red juice in a method known as Rosé de Saignée, or literally, pink from the bleeding. As the juice becomes pink from macerating on the skins, it is drawn off. I have to confess, I am not enormously fond of this wine, but it is very well made. I prefer my wines a little more light-footed, silky and light. This process promotes a broader-structured, slightly more red wine-like result. However, once in an eon, they release a vintage luxury release called Grand Siècle Alexandra Rosé.  This one was from the 1998 vintage. It was extraordinary full-flavoured, with hints of honey, cocoa and rich morello cherries. Perfectly balanced, despite its Range Rover proportions. Can’t say I’ve ever had a saignée Champagne that was nearly that impressive. How much was it, I hear you ask? £250. Yup. Thought so. 

And finally we come to Pommery. I said I would come back to this in the first of the three blogs, and here I am. I have to confess that I really haven’t enjoyed the basic Pommery offerings, although from my experience, the extra ageing afforded the magnums makes a phenomenal difference. If I were to buy Pommery, it would therefore be in magnum. But then again, I’d probably actually buy something else. I loved the astute marketing frivolity of the POP miniatures, but what have we here?….

This is Clos Pompadour, a frankly delicious wine, made from the walled vineyard behind the campest Chateau in the world. It looks less like the a great and old Champagne house, nestled on top of one of the most historic Roman cellars in the world, and more like the summerhouse for Siegfried and Roy. Wanna see? Oh, OK…

Sorry. Couldn’t find picture taken in the sun. It’s way more camp in the sun. Anyway this Clos Pompadour wine was extraordinary, and youthful. It is so racey and tight, that it fissles past your ear like a rifle shot. Crisp, precise, but after that comes great depth. And length. 

Anyway, next to that on the same table was this. This is worth fighting over. I have never had a bad Cuvée Louise Pommery, and this smelled absolutely sublime. So it should. I mean Cuvée Louise Pommery 1990. It really doesn’t get any more exciting than that. Especially when it’s in Jeroboam. And 1990 Jerries at that.  It has an aroma of lillies, jasmine, and a perfume that I can only describe as 'heavy green herbs’. You know the ones. The ones that some of us were into at university.  The palate was creamy, but fine, with a pristine bite, and crisp edges, coated in a hint of cinder toffee, dried orange rind and the freshest of apples. Quite brilliant wine this. So the punchline? Oh, there’s a punchline.. The Clos de Pompadour is how much?

Just guess!

No.

£400 a magnum.

Holy crap… Well then, how much is a three litre, wine nerd’s wet dream like the one below?  I daren’t look! Do you? Scroll down for the answer…

400 euros.

And THAT, my friends, is a fucking bargain.

Hope you enjoyed the blog….