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Wine Description
The Story
Champagne Bollinger has understood the multiple profiles of La Côte aux Enfants in Aÿ, a legendary terroir established with great perseverance by the Jacques Bollinger himself between 1926 and 1934.
La Côte aux Enfants Champagne, the first cuvée from a Bollinger's single plot, offers wine enthusiasts an experience
truly unprecedented tasting experience. In this unique terroir Bollinger has chosen a single varietal, Pinot Noir, through which he has sought to reach the highest peak.
The experience becomes even more unique considering that compared to the rules of the appellation, the wine has stood on the bouchon liege twice as long.
La Côte aux Enfants Coteaux Champenois is a rarity in Champagne – a still red wine made from 100% Pinot Noir grapes from a legendary plot in Äy. Aged for 8 months in small oak barrels and released only in top vintages, it is surprisingly concentrated and powerful.
Vintage 2015
A wet winter and mild spring gave way to an exceptionally dry summer from mid-May onwards. Hot weather prevailed until mid-August, when the skies opened again. Rains gave way to fine, cool, yet sunny weather for the first two weeks of harvest, which commenced on August 29th. The 2015 vintage has a lot of common denominators with the 2003 vintage but the 2015s are showing a better balance of weight and freshness with their average potential alcohol level of 10.5% and total acidity of 6.9 g/l. The quality and ageing capacity of the vintage has been questioned because of the low acidity, but to me the structure of the wine is not the problem; the aromatics are. Initially as vins clairs, I found the wines to come with ample, attractive fruitiness. The vegetal, particularly ash-like aromatics were subdued but have since then become amplified, especially in the vintage bottlings. Drought issues are considered to be the culprit to these widely spread aromatic issues of the year. I have come notably down from my initial assessment. However, most vintage and prestige cuvées are yet to surface from the cellars and their quality will make or break the vintage.