A Visit from Lucie Pereyre de Nonancourt of Laurent-Perrier

Lucie Pereyre de Nonancourt and Naomi Smith recently honored our Redwood City staff with a visit from the Grand Siècle division of Laurent-Perrier. Lucie is the newest member of the family to enter the business and is focusing primarily on the Grand Siècle side. Their visit brought back wonderful memories of my visit to Laurent-Perrier earlier in the year and gave us all a chance to try a few bottlings of the Grand Siècle. Being their luxury cuvée, Grand Siècle is made a bit differently than some houses. This bottling is blended as a cuvée rather than a single vintage and is one of the most impressive and impressively priced of the top cuvées. It offers a consistency of style and quality that is always reliably spectacular. They’ve also recently switched to identifying the specific cuvée of Grand Siècle with an iteration number included on the foil for each new cuvée. The vintages used in each are available at the Grand Siècle website and is fantastic information to have for those of us wanting to know everything we can about what we’re enjoying.   

We tried iterations 20 and 22 from magnum and 23 and 24 from a standard 750ml bottle. Every release from LP is meant to be ready for immediate drinking. Still, by aging in a proper cellar, a little patience pays wonderful dividends, broadening the flavors and smoothing out the textures, revealing a different side of the wine when compared to a current release. 

Established in 1812, Laurent-Perrier is family owned and managed by the family of Lucie. This house is one of the most extraordinary examples of living history in all of Champagne. The commitment and talents of the Laurent-Perrier team without fail find its way into the glass, and it shows.

-Shaun Green