Tasting Notes

Recently Karen and I attended a Bollinger dinner at Vue du Monde in Melbourne in the lead up to the Melbourne Cup. Bollinger is a wonderful, old traditional Champagne House still privately owned by the Bollinger family with an excellent Non Vintage and vintage champagne. Please find my tasting notes below.

Bollinger 'Special Cuvee'. Tasted 2nd November 2009
The wine opened with a delightfully fine bead and youthful yellow / green hue.
The nose was yeasty with aromas of freshly baked bread, warm from the oven, very appealling. The palate was soft and creamy with tremendous delicacy and length.

Many champagne houses keep their reserve wines in tank or large barrel but amazingly Bollinger keep half a million magnums filled with their reserve wines in their cellar for blending purposes. It is the combination of these older reserve vintages blended with a predominantly younger vintage that make up the Special Cuvee.

Bollinger La Grande Annee 1999 Tasted 2nd November 2009.
Slightly more yellow in colour than the Special Cuvee the 1999 none the less pocessed the same fine bead. The nose was more complex with aromas of vegimite, toast and almond. The palate was full and very intense though not extracted. The house style of delicacy, and creaminess with wonderfull length of flavour came through.

Tasting Notes

Dom Perignon 2000 Tasted 8/10/09
Yellow, showing some age with a persistant fine bead. The bouquet has almond aromas showing development beyond my expectations and a complex toastiness. The palate is rich and full with with an ageeable firmness, persistance of flavour and crisp acidity.

Louis Roederer Cristal 1996 Tasted 9/10/09
Brilliant yellow with an excellent bead. Lovely toasty, brioche aromas showing some development but none the less flattering considering this is a thirteen year old wine. The palate is balanced, soft and creamy with lively acidity and youthfulness suggesting this wine has time to spare.

Joseph Loriot-Pagel Blanc de Blancs 1997, Jeroboam Tasted 10/10/09
This was by far the most youthful of the three wines which clearly supports the theory that large formats age more slowly. The colour was green to yellow and the bead was lively and delicate. Fresh bread and developed autolysed yeast aromas drifted from the glass whilst the palate showed an abundance of freshness, youthful fruit and crisp acidity.