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Wine Description
The Story
Nicolas Feuillatte’s iconic cuvée, capturing its quintessential style, Palmes d’Or Brut is only revealed through the prism of the vintage, when a truly exceptional harvest year enables its primary qualities to truly shine. A wine defined by time, capable of stirring supreme emotion, offering texture and flavours of great finesse.
A precious, black, opaque bottle that shuns accepted Champagne tradition. A bottle specially designed to contain this exceptional Champagne, facetted like a precious stone, its exterior illuminated with a thousand shards of light. Golden letters, traced with a touch of luxury, subtly underscore the promise of an exceptional Champagne.
Blend:
• Chardonnay 50%, Pinot Noir 50% from 11-12 Grand Crus
• 95% of wines sourced from Grand Cru vineyards, a blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in equal measure.
• Chardonnay – Chouilly, Cramant, Oger, Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, Avize et Montgueux)
• Pinot Noir – Bouzy, Verzy, Verzenay, Aÿ et Ambonnay..
• A pure gem, an ode to beauty.
• Rested in the cellars for almost a decade.
• A defining feature: Chardonnay from Montgueux, more tropical, fleshy and intense in character, and imparting its aromatic patina and cohesive qualities.
Taste:
• Aromas of bracingly fresh white fruits, dried almonds and apricots, and a slight hint of spice.
• Upfront, permeating flavours of redcurrant and citrus fruits. A second wave of Pinot Noir freshness and streak of minerality, underpinned by a distinctive chalk signature and acutely delicate smoky edge.
Vintage 1996
Up to this point 1996 has been considered a fantastic vintage which produced classic wines; the best since 1990. A long, dry summer produced grapes of record ripeness with record acidity. Some, including myself, question how the 1996s are aging. The wines are generally characterized by a distinctive rather lemony acidity and very good attack, but some wines now seem terribly austere, while others already seem dangerously short of fruit. None of the subsequent vintages are quite as distinctive as 1996, which in the more successful cases should almost certainly be drunk after the 1999s.