France Archives - Page 2 of 4 -

Bollinger Special Cuvee Champagne Review – Simply Perfect

We always love trying Champagne house's premium production lines as they are always worth savoring and talking about. Bollinger's Special Cuvee NV Champagne is no different.

What makes Bollinger's Special Cuvee unique is that this wine is not a vintage Champagne. It has all the characteristics of being an intense, vintage bottle of bubbly but is instead made up of reserve wines that have been aging anywhere from five to 15 years made with grapes from grand and premier cru sites from all over Champagne.

So what you end up is an incredibly intense, powerful wine that can be enjoyed again, and again, and again- assuming you can find a bottle for sale, at least.

After going down the Champagne rabbit hole, we realized that there is Champagne and there is Champagne.

If you have had incredible Champagne, you know exactly what we mean about this. Strong acidity, pronounced fruit and lees notes, an incredible mouthfeel, and a finish that just hangs on.

While we generally like all bottles of Champagne that find their way to our table, only certain bottles are Champagne in this sense. These are often vintage or prestige blends that are some of the top of the line bottles from any producer and often come at a price to match.

Champagne Dumenil's 1999 was one such bottle for us. Although this one clocked in at one of the highest price points we have ever paid for Champagne (about $120 a bottle), oh was it worth it.

We first stumbled upon Domaine Weinbach's incredible wines at Wine Bar George in Disney Springs (particularly one of their high-end Riesling).

Over time, and as part of our WSET studies, we learned that high-quality Alsatian producers like Domaine Weinbach are well known for making some of the world's best Riesling, Gewurztraminer, and more.

So when we found a bottle of Weinbach's “Les Treilles du Loup” at Total Wine, we knew we had to pick it up to try.

It did not last long, and now we want another.

When it comes to French Sauvignon Blanc, most drinker's first thoughts go to the popular region of Sancerre.

But in the USA, we've often find that high quality Sancerres are hard to come by, and when we do find them, they're often north of $40 which is a hard pricepoint for us for this particular grape (if only because many regions do it well for far less).

Instead, when we can find it, we often pick up Pouilly-Fume bottles as they can be just as if not more intense than equivalently priced Sancerre bottles. Marc Deschamps Les Champs de Cri was no different. This one was a gem!

Whenever it comes to fine Champagne, you generally have many categories of bottles to choose from. These can include non-vintage, vintage, and more exclusive blends that feature the best of the best the producer has to offer.

Prestige-branded Champagne often is the top of the top for any given producer, and we knew we were in for a treat when we opened Champagne Dumenil's Cuvee Prestige Vieilles Vignes Brut.

But it wasn't until we sampled this astoundingly delicious bottle that we truly understood how special it was. This one is quite the gem!

In my studies for WSET Diploma, I knew I had to get my hands of a Blanc de Noirs style of wine to try.

This style of sparkling is white wine made from black grapes (hence the term “white of black”) and, in my shopping experience at least, is slightly harder to come by over the more popular (and highly prized) Blanc de Blanc style.

So not only was it a treat finding Celene's Amethyste Brut, it was also a treat to try a Cremant from Bordeaux made from Cabernet Franc and Merlot. But the real kicker was that this bottle was also on sale for about $12, which made it an absolute steal!

I have a love/hate relationship with Sauvignon Blanc (and blends) from France. On average I really enjoy the grape, but to get the intensity and complexity I generally prefer out of French wines it almost always feels like you have to start out at $40/bottle (if not more) to get to a quality point that other locales can provide for half the price.

This is not exclusive to Sauvignon Blanc. In all honesty, it is simply France knowing how to get the most for their wines abroad. But that being said, it seems especially true with all the Sauvignon Blancs we've tried.

The Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon blend from Chateau Picque Caillou from Pessac-Leognan was not much different. While this one was much more complex for its price point than we originally expected, we also weren't quite sure about the sell price in the USA.

When I decided to sign up for WSET Diploma, I knew I'd have to go sparkling heavy when in the D4 module.

As I have the least experience with all things bubbles, this meant finding new styles of wines to try outright (although not necessarily new grapes per our quest).

So early on in this module, I decided to go for Jean-Baptiste Adam Brute Rose- a Cremant d'Alsace made in the traditional method with a little bit of skin contact from my favorite region in France!

It was every bit what I hoped for.

We often find that non-vintage Champagne can have flavor profiles all over the place. Some are high acid with simple citrus fruit flavors. Others have strong lees components. Others still may have some indication of age because, well, we simply have no way of knowing how old that bottle was to begin with.

Champagne Taittinger's Brut NV definitely fell towards the end of being one of the more complex non-vintage Champagnes we've had to date, and now we simply want more!

When it comes to French Sauvignon Blanc, if you know a bit about regions your mind may first go to Sancerre in the Loire Valley. While this region does make stellar bottles, we often find the prices in the USA to be just a bit more than what we'd prefer for the respective bottles.

Thankfully, Pouilly-Fume nearby also makes some stellar Sauvignon Blanc at, in our limited sampling at least, slightly better quality when comparing two similarly priced bottles. The only downside? They can be quite hard to find in the USA- so whenever we see a bottle we snatch it up right away. Domaine Serge Dagueneau et Filles Pouilly-Fume was no different, and we really could use another bottle of this one in our cellar!

Bollinger Special Cuvee Champagne Review – Simply Perfect

Dumenil 1999 Review – An Exquisite Aged Champagne

Domaine Weinbach Les Treilles du Loup Gewurztraminer 2020 Review

Marc Deschamps “Les Champs de Cri” Pouilly-Fume 2019 Review

Champagne Dumenil Cuvee Prestige Vieilles Vignes Review

Celene Amethyste Brut Blanc de Noirs NV Review – A Great Price

Chateau Picque Caillou Pessac-Leognan 2020 Review – Acidic French White

Jean-Baptiste Adam Brute Rose NV – Traditional Method Rose

Taittinger Champagne Brut NV Review – Impressive Flavor Profile

Serge Dagueneau et Filles Pouilly-Fume Les Pentes 2019 Review