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Wine Description
The Story
The Champagne "Special Club" vintage is a blend of the most outstanding wines from an exceptional year. Composed of wines from 6 to 8 vineyards, this very exclusive Champagne is rarely made due the exacting standards ensured by the "Club des Viticulteurs Champenois" - an exclusive club of only 40 members, grouped from all parts of Champagne with one common aim: to create the greatest Champagnes.
Fruit of a severe selection, it is "the optimal expression of our soils". The blend is composed exclusively of Chardonnay, mostly from "Cramant Grand Cru" and old vines (50% of our vines are over 40 years old, the two "doyennes" are 100 years old ...). 20 to 30% of the blend comes from our "Cuis 1er Cru" vineyard.
The "Champagne Special Club" is indeed very special! The bubbles are miniscule and persistent, giving rise to a perfect, firm, mousse - a characteristic of a truly great "blanc de blancs". The nose is extremely elegant, with clean, deep enchanting fruit aromas. On the palate the fine exquisite bubbles tickle the tongue in a symphony of tiny explosions that are ever persistent! On the the palate this Champagne is perfection, with great depth and masses of flavour balancing the liveliness into a long rich and elegant finish. An extremely charming Champagne that ages with great dignity, developing classic Burgundy characteristics.
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.