Vintage is just called on exceptional years, every house has its own standards of quality. 2003 was a vintage for some houses and others thought it wasn't worth producing a vintage. They normally agree on this, but it's not compulsory. So we can say that "vintage Champagne" is a "premium Champagne", but some houses decided to create something called a prestige cuvée, which would be the prestige of the house, the flagship of their winery. It's always a vintage and it always contains the best wine that the winery can produce in their biggest effort.
Not every house has a prestige cuvée, but here you have a list of some of those that do:
- Ruinart has Dom Ruinart
- Louis Roederer has Cristal
- Veuve Clicquot has La Grande Damme
- Laurent Perrier has Grand Siècle
- Perrier Jouet has La Belle Epoque
- Taittinger has Comtes de Champagne
Moet Chandon had Dom Pérignon as their Prestige Cuvée (or Tête de Cuvée) for a long time before they decided to separate the brands, and the range Oenotheque was saved for the best of those vintages, those that the chef de cave would consider even more exceptional and with an advance ageing ability. These wines were kept agin with their lees for at least 15 years. There isn't any rule that applies to this, it's just the chef de cave who determines when a vintage of Oenotheque is ready for the public - some of those vintages could be ageing on the lees for as long as 40 years. Thus the extraordinary value of these rare wines, and in many wine lists the oldest vintages reach prices of over one thousand pounds per 75cl bottle.
The taste of these wines is complex. Tertiary aromas show with elegance; the '62 vintage, which was disgorged in 2002, had a dark gold colour, and although the effervescence was mild it was to expect in such an old wine and it didn't give the sensation of a flat Champagne. The nose was intense in iodine and toffee, black tea notes in the aftertaste and an unexpected youthful note of yellow fruits to finish that made the aftertaste prolong even more. The '76 vintage was vibrant, with an absolutely different character than the '62, it was a younger wine in all aspects, being disgorged in 2003 the effervescence was stronger and the colour was paler; the nose strong in caramel and violets with hints of poached apple and clove. It had a magnificent length which opened new possibilities in the aromas.
2 other wines were opened last week:
Dominus 1995! Exceptional!!
This Californian wine made by Christian Moueix, the creator of wines like Petrus and Trotanoy, mainly made of Cabernet Sauvignon in the most traditional Bordeaux style, shows what Napa Valley has been making since the late 70's. Although many people try to discredit American wine, I'm an absolute lover of may wines from the West Coast. Dominus Estate has been producing wine since 1983. It's difficult to see people nowadays ordering this wine, that has an incredible value, when compared in price and quality to some Bordeaux.
'95 had an astounding bright ruby colour, the nose was complex with hints of oak represented as vanilla and fresh notes of cinnamon, red berries showed afterwards which made me think that this wine had more years of cellaring to go. The texture was silky, the tannins ripe, the acidity well balanced - I enjoyed every sip of it. I think that we need to do a vertical tasting of it one day, since I have in the cellar a good library collection of this wine.
A good friend and customer of ours decided to have a bottle of Chateau Figeac 2001...
Although it's quite a mainstream wine that many people have heard of, or tasted, I think it deserves a few words. This wine, as many other Bordeaux estates, has an exciting history dating back to the 2nd Century when a Gallo-Roman villa was built on the estate, formerly known as Figeacus. It's a wine that ages well and is normally priced at a lower range - not forgetting that we're talking about one of the renown Bordeaux. The taste of the wine was mainly based on berries and oak, with that beautiful aroma of coconut that French Oak imparts.
The tannins were ripe and the wine has at least another 8 to 10 years to develop so the tertiary aromas were still shy - you could just imagine them as a vague memory of the past.
That's all for now.
Derya Demirci de la Fuente
Auberge du Lac Head Sommelier
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