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Wine Information
During the early golden era of De Venoge in the mid-1850s, Joseph de Venoge managed to lure his wine into the favour of the European princes by arranging champagne and shooting picnics for them. To please the eye of royalty, a special crystal carafe bottle was created for the Vin des Princes in 1864. No bottles of the early cuvée have survived to this day but the legend of Vin des Prince has persisted nonetheless.
It was, however, much later when the prestigé cuvee as we currently know it was launched. The story begins in 1961 when Champagne des Princes was first made. The first release was a non-vintage but the following examples have been vintage champagnes. The authorities banned the use of the name, as the word Champagne was considered unregisterable; De Venoge’s solution was to rename it Grand Vin des Princes.
Grand Vin des Princes was crafted to fit the emerging blanc de blancs prestige cuvée category pioneered by Salon, Comtes de Champagne and Dom Ruinart. It is a 100 per cent Chardonnay from the Grand Crus of Côtes de Blancs – namely Avize, Oger, Cramant and Chouilly.
Vintage 1990
Three excellent vintages in Champagne were 1988, 1989 and 1990. Initially, many considered 1990 the finest of the trio, but that mantle has since passed to 1988. Some of the 1990 champagnes have evolved more quickly than anticipated, and there can be variation among bottles and producers. Winter and early spring saw warm weather that resulted in an early bud-break, making vines susceptible to the spring frost which duly arrived in April. This led to some uneven ripening and differing levels of maturity owing to the second generation of grapes that appeared after the frost damage and thus ripened later. The summer was generally dry and warm, which produced big, powerful, concentrated and full-flavoured wines.
