Bollinger Champagne...
 We often hear that the House of Bollinger
incarnates a style. Most certainly, Bollinger proposes to great
wine-lovers something different and unique in Champagne.
This
specific style is bound to a family history that, for
generations, chose to stay close to its land while ensuring it
developed its international reputation.
“Bollinger, a class aside in the Champagne
business” could be a simple advertising slogan. However, as soon
as we consider the details of the differences cultivated by the
House, it asserts itself as a reality. Indeed, when we examine
the range of wines, this assertion is absolutely proven.
A fruit of the tricks of the earth and
climate, making Champagne will always remain a difficult art;
the art of blending grape varieties, crus or vintages, to get
the quintessential wine. In that sense, “Special Cuvée” from
Bollinger is, without doubt, the highest expression of its
know-how and style.
In favourable conditions the House of
Bollinger also makes, with the grapes of the year, wines which
have, on top of the style of the House, the character and
personality of their respective vintages. This is the case with
the “Grande Année” and with the Grande Années continuity of
excellence in the “R.D.”.
The House of Aÿ, not sparing of differences,
also offers two other unique wines in Champagne: “the “la Côte
aux Enfants” and the “Vieilles Vignes Françaises”. All these
wines have a history which merits being told.
|
Special
Cuvée |
|
Bin No |
MENT/001 |
Size |
1 x 75cl |
Price |
£36.75 |
|
 Le style Bollinger
The denomination Special
Cuvée was created in 1911. The idea came from William Folks, then
partner of the illustrious London House of Mentzendorff.
This great
wine lover felt it was an insult to simply call this great wine “non
vintage”. The suggestion of naming it “Special Cuvée” was
immediately approved by Monsieur Bollinger.
A blend par excellence,
the Special Cuvée is the purest expression of the
Bollinger
style, of its know-how and particular conception of Champagne. It is, therefore, on
this wine that the House of Bollinger shows how it is different from
other Champagne Houses, asserts its quality policy and by which it
asks to be judged.
Year in year out,
everything is brought into play to recompose this bouquet of aromas
and consistently recreate this particular blend of vinosity, finesse
and freshness that characterise the special Cuvée, making it a
thoroughly unique wine. |
|
La Grande Année 1999 |
|
Bin No |
MENT/005 |
Size |
1 x 75cl |
Price |
£63.45 |
|
 L'excellence Bollinger
The House of Bollinger
only produces vintage Champagnes in exceptional
years, when the
grapes have reached a perfect quality and maturity with a perfect
balance between the acids and sugars.
Hence
the denomination “Grande Année” given to this Champagne which,
unlike the “Special Cuvée”, is made solely with the products of this
exceptional harvest.
Nonetheless, Bollinger's
La Grande Année remains a wine of the assemblage of crus and white
and black grapes. In this sense, it too is the expression of
the style of the house. Simply, in this case, this style is placed
at the service of the excellence of a vintage. It is the best that
the House of Bollinger can produce with wines from the same year,
exalting its particular character. |
|
R.D. 1996 |
|
Bin No |
MENT/009 |
Size |
1 x 75cl |
Price |
£165.00 |
|
 La distinction
Bollinger
To be truly different,
it perhaps suffices quite simply to remain oneself... In any case,
it is in that spirit that Bollinger created a Champagne wine unlike
any other: the "R.D." OR "Recently Disgorged”.
Coming from a "Grande
Année" blend, the R.D. owes its specific character to its longer
ageing and - as its name indicates - to the recent nature of
its disgorging.
First created in the
early 1950's, R.D. is the outcome of research carried out by the House
of Bollinger relative to the ageing of Champagne on its lees. In
these conditions, not only does the wine not spoil but it continues
to evolve from year to year. In contact with its deposit, it gains
in finesse and subtley. Remaining
thus at least eight years on its lees, the R.D. takes on exceptional
aromatic complexity and finish. Conversely, its recent disgorging -
of which the date is indicated on the back of the bottle - gives it
surprising freshness. |
|
Côte aux
Enfants 1997 |
|
Bin No |
MENT/013 |
Size |
1 x 75cl |
Price |
£43.25 |
|
 La
curiosité Bollinger
The
Champagne region was originally highly was reputed for its red
wines. It is even said that they supplanted those Burgundy from the
table of Henri IV. The most prized were the wines of Aÿ. Moreover,
in that era, it dose seem that people had got in the habit of
generically calling any red wine from Champagne “Vin d'Aÿ”.
From
the red Champagne hillside of Aÿ, this wines constitutes a return to
origins. Produced uniquely in exceptional years and coming from La
Côte aux Enfants site in Aÿ, this still wine is made from a Pinot
Noir ripened under the best conditions of soil and exposure. It
bears witness to what the red wines of Champagne might have been
like at the time of their splendour.
|
|
Vieilles
Vignes Francaises Blanc de Noirs 1997 |
|
Bin No |
MENT/012 |
Size |
1 x 75cl |
Price |
Sold
Out |
|
 La mémoire
Bollinger
Absolutely unique in
Champagne, Bollinger “Vieilles Vignes Françaises” is the living
relic of what the Champagne of yesteryear might have been like,
before the French vineyards were devastated by phylloxera.
Mysteriously, in Aÿ and Bouzy, a
few plots of "franches de pied", i.e., un-grafted and free from
phylloxera, resisted the aphid from America. The Bollinger family
decided to save them.
They are grown "en foule" (loose) and
worked manually, with tools from the past and according to the old
Champagne ways. This method - high in cost and limited in yield -
allows the grape to reach great maturity, whilst preserving a very
low Ph
(high acidity), characteristic of a great Champagne.
Composed solely of Pinot
Noir, always vintage and particularly full-bodied, round and
complete, Bollinger Vieilles Vignes
Françaises is the conservatory of the Bollinger style, such as it
might have been appreciated in the previous century. |
|
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