Champagne for the New Year

No occasion is more synonymous with Champagne than New Year’s Eve, and I have some great recommendations to ring in 2026. I have often said, there are 364 great nights to go out, and one great night to stay in and drink Champagne—the 31st of December is a great night to stay off the streets!

While reasonably priced, the A.D. Coutelas "Cuvée Louis Victor" Brut Champagne $39.99 gives up nothing in terms of quality. In fact, this champagne comes from just one giant barrel, a perpetual reserve started in 2007. The current batch, which took 18 years to make, spans thirteen harvests, with the youngest element coming from 2019. The wine is composed of roughly a third each Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Meunier and four years of ageing on the lees give this wine a wonderful subtle brioche character. The texture is fine, with great compact bubbles and some nutty, woodsy flavors. The best thing about this wine is the layers of complexity should you decide to taste carefully- you can’t cheat time, and Coutelas did not cheat here!

The top of the line offering at Coutelas is their A.D. Coutelas "Cuvée 1809" Brut Champagne $64.99 and this could easily fool anyone for a wine three times the price. It is composed of 80% Chardonnay and 20% Pinot Noir that has been fermented in barrique. The current batch is all 2018, although not labeled as such on the bottle. If you like barrel fermented Champagne such as Bollinger, Krug, and Tarlant, this is very much worth a try, with perfectly integrated, subtle vanilla married to clean baguette toast on the expressive nose. In the mouth, the wine is rich, full bodied and yet still quite dry. The long finish is really remarkable here, with great almost salty minerality.

There is a great reason why the Billecart-Salmon "Le Rosé" Champagne $89.99 defines the entire rosé Champagne category—few wines are as easy to drink and keep drinking. Unlike so many things in life, this is very hard to tire of. The current batch is based on 2021, and benefits from getting some of the best juice available to the house in this bottling, as they made no Nicolas, Louis, or Elisabeth from this harvest. Chef de cave Florent Nys added a full 56% reserves to this batch, and only red wine from massal-selected old vines in Mareuil-sur-Ay was used. Effortlessly fresh, this wine has subtle strawberry fruit tied to fine chalk and a scintillating finish.

If you are having caviar this NYE, the Laurent-Perrier "Grand Siècle" Iteration #26 Brut Champagne $249.99 is my favorite pairing in the world for top notch roe. A few of you reading this might have attended out event with LP and Tsar Nicoulai Caviar in SF where this wine blew our socks off. It is close to even parts chardonnay and pinot noir, aged for over 10 years on the lees. The current batch is 2012, 2008, and 2007, and now that it is almost sold out, it is showing its absolute best. The warm brioche notes in this wine are subtle as is the hazelnut depth and the meyer lemon zing… It has it all. If you have never had this wine, don’t miss it, three great vintages are much better than one!

Speaking of almost sold out, the Krug "Grande Cuvée" 172ème Édition Brut Champagne $259.99 is a fantastic bottle for the end of the year. Yes, it is expensive, but this wine took more than 20 years to create, and the results are mind blowing. As a Krug Ambassador, I have had dozens of opportunities to taste with Olvier Krug, and he always says the same thing about Grande Cuvée—it is the equal to any of their bottlings but priced more fairly because it is more available. For me, the combination of the Puligny Montrachet like limy drive from the 2016 harvest (the youngest in the blend) and the profound noisette depth of the 1998 (the oldest in the blend) set off every pleasure sensor in my brain. This has the spark and verve of youth, but the sophistication and depth of age, all in one bottle.

Happy 2026 and a toast to you!

- Gary Westby, K&L Champagne Buyer