Champagne for All My Friends!
Paul, Caroline Bertille, and Gary in the vineyard at Aspasie.
Ariston Aspasie "Réserve" Brut Champagne $37.99 A perennial favorite of mine for gifting (often to myself!), this Champagne gets double the aging of Veuve Clicquot—a full five years on the lees. It is also exclusively estate grown in Brouillet in the northwest corner of the Champagne region, and the love put into the vines shows up in the glass. Composed of 40% Chardonnay, 30% Pinot Noir, and 30% Meunier, you will find a toasty baguette aroma, great texture from patient aging, tiny bubbles, and a clean dry finish. Make sure to get some for yourself as well as your friends!
Claire and Laurent Derot in their 1 acre of Pinot Gris.
Dérot-Delugny "Retour en Avant" Brut $49.99 Perfect for the wine lover, the sommelier, the person who has had it all, this delicious Champagne is the only one I have ever seen that is 100% Pinot Gris. They can’t make it every year; sometimes the one-acre site does not yield enough to fill the press! On the nose I find some exotic fruit blended in with the subtle brioche, but in the mouth, it is all Champagne: clean, fresh, and very long finishing. The grape variety makes the story, but the quality makes the wine!
Héritage—worthy of the white glove treatment.
Laurent-Perrier "Héritage" Brut Champagne $104.99 Pure class in a bottle, the Héritage is tête de cuvée quality that will go head-to-head with most anything double its price. It is silk in a bottle with an impossibly tiny bead, a feat accomplished by using exclusively reserve wines from grand and premier cru sites. The current batch is a blend of 2019, 2018, 2016 and 2014 and composed of 55% Chardonnay and 45% Pinot Noir. It hides its nutty complexity with perfect balance, and even the most jaded of palates will be pleased with the layers of intrigue in this great bottle.
Mathieu Roland-Billecart mixing down the 2012 NFB.
2012 Billecart-Salmon "Cuvée Nicolas François Billecart" NFB Brut Champagne $199.99 97JS 96WA 95DC 95VN My top Champagne release of the year, the 2012 NFB came out late this spring while other houses were releasing 2016s, 2018s and even 2019s. The 2012 vintage is uncontroversially in the top three vintages of the 21st century, and this is one of the greatest examples. Mathieu and his family aged this for 120 months on the lees—a full decade—before disgorging and resting on the cork for another full year. That patience has given this wine the most compact stream of tiny bubbles one could wish for. It is composed of 60% Pinot Noir from Verzenay, Ay, and Billecart's home in Mareuil, with 40% Chardonnay from Chouilly, Avize, and Mesnil. The hazelnut complexity and layered, delicate brioche of the nose give way to fresh, clean, chizzled minerality in the mouth, all the time staying easy to drink and never austere. It is dosed at just 3.8 grams per liter. You might not want to give this one away!
A toast to you!