Ultimate Champagne

PreviousNext Image 1 of 3

Ultimate Champagne

Ultimate Champagne

The House of Bollinger

Ultimate Champagne

30 March - 3 April 2009, 15 - 19 March 2010

We have been visiting the Champagne region with our champagne loving clients 15 times a year since 1987, so we can truly claim to know much about the region and have a very genuine personal passion for the wines.

On this special tour we stay at a small manor house hotel belonging to one of the small Champagne producers that we have long been admirers of. We will take this over for our exclusive use for this VIP tour and then from here we have a series of our dream Champagne visits and tastings.

We travel to the region by first class Eurostar to Lille and on from here by road (the fastest connection to the region). On arrival we visit Philipponnat, whose single vineyard cuvée de prestige, Clos des Goisses is a truly superb wine; we start the trip in style as their guests for dinner after a visit to the Clos.

The Champagne Houses

Champagne Philipponnat

The Champagne Philipponnat in Mareuil-sur-Aÿ is a relatively modern house, founded only in 1912 and now owned by Bruno Paillard. This has always been an underrated house offering good quality and excellent value. The house style is generally elegant and fresh, with plenty of easy-going fruit and a soft, smooth mousse.Philipponnat owns one of Champagne's greatest vineyards the Clos des Goisses and this is also the firm's 'Cuvee de Prestiege'. The Clos des Goissesis an intense, complex wine with strong, ripe fruit, capable of long ageing.

Bollinger

Founded in 1829 by Admiral de Villermont, an important landowner, and his future son-in-law Jacques Bollinger, a native of Württemberg. This famous Champagne house has a very traditionalist image; it certainly continues to make muscular Pinot Noir-dominated wine of body, depth, vinous complexity and exceptional longevity. Since Ghislain de Montgolfier, who is direct descendant of the founder, took over the reins in 1995, the Bollinger style has changed very slightly, and for the better.

Pol Roger

This Epernay house remains family owned and, until 1955, possessed no vineyards whatsover. It currently owns 85 hectares. The non-vintage, White Foil, is an excellent example of the desired balance between the powerful Pinot Noir grape and the fresh, floral notes of Pinot Meunier. Their rosé is exquisitely perfumed with strawberry, peach and raspberry, and is simply delicious. The house's prestige cuvée is the Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill which shows both elegance and complexity.

Salon Le Mesnil

Here is where the original, and some say the greatest, Blanc de Blancs Champagne is made. All the grapes come from the village of Le Mesnil, from old vines with low yields on the best part of the slope. The sheer concentration of Salon Champagne, and its flinty-austere style makes it not to everyone's taste. Salon produces just one style of champagne and only in the greatest vintage years.

Louis Roederer

Top-draw, family owned Champagne house run with a mix of wine passion and business acumen by Jean-Claude Rouzaud. Roederer's peerless reputation rests on its superb vineyards of 180 hectares. Their style is bell-round, nonetheless, with the reserves being used to tickle in extra ripeness in years when nature has not delivered. The rest of the range is exclusively vintage-dated, stylistically diverse, always dignified, concentrated and slow to unfold.

Moët & Chandon Claude Moët

A wine trader descended from an old family resident in the Champagne region since the 14th century, founded his house in Epernay in 1743, and decided to perpetuate the Dom Perignon legacy. His grandson, Jean-Rémy Moët, is the one who, in the 19th century, really helped the house expand by opening it up to foreign markets. Jean-Rémy Moët handed the house over to his son and his son-in-law, Pierre-Gabriel Chandon de Briailles and it became known as Moët & Chandon. Moët is the largest Champagne house of all and owns a truly massive vineyard of exceptional quality. The ubiquitous non-vintage is actually a very good Champagne. (It is our impression that it has improved greatly in the past few years). The Premier Cru NV is quite excellent, and Dom, is Dom!