Asian Cuisine
Critic Scores
There's a pleasing, snappy quality to the acidity framing this elegant Champagne, enlivening accessible flavors of currant, Marcona almond and orchard blossom, with a minerally touch of saline-laced oyster shell that lingers on the finish. Drink now through 2022. 11,000 cases imported.
AN - 11/2019
Disgorged six months ago, the latest rendition of the NV Brut Special Cuve was bottled in 2015, and while its core derives from the 2014 vintage, it contains fully 60% reserve wines. The wine wafts from the glass with a classic bouquet of apples, pear, walnut oil and clear honey, followed by a medium to full-bodied palate that's broad-shouldered and Pinot Noir-driven, with a pinpoint mousse, nice tension at the core and a delicately chalky finish. Gilles Descotes commented that one of his biggest challenges is finding enough wine raised in wood to make the Special Cuve in years where Grand Anne is producedand to that end, Bollinger is significantly expanding its barrel program to ferment even more base wine in used oak.
WK - 04/2019
Deep aromas of ginger, toffee, butter and nutskin reminded me of a maturing white Burgundy. Full-bodied and intense, with flavors of toasted bread, spiced apple, baked pear and nutskin. Sappy, deep and strong in extract this has impressive palate presence. Finishes with excellent subtle persistence. A particularly harmonious bottle of Bollinger, and a perfect dinner-table Champagne.
