YOUNGS MARKET® Bollinger Special Cuvee Champagne (Champagne, France) [6.0 L] – [DM 96] [JD 93] [WS 92] [JS 92] [RP 91] – 6058444325023

About this wine:
Since 1829, Bollinger has been producing great Champagnes with a powerful, sophisticated and complex style.  In 2006, the prestigious French wine magazine La Revue du Vin de France surveyed the most significant group of sommeliers and wine writers to help select the top 50 Champagne Houses. This would be regarded as the flag-bearer for the greatness of Champagne as a unique wine region. Bollinger was selected as the Number #1 House by this group. 

With 399 acres of vineyards situated in the best Grands Crus and Premiers Crus villages, Bollinger relies on its own estate for nearly two-thirds of its grape requirements, including the Pinot Noir that gives its Champagne its distinctive roundness and elegance.

Notes from the Winemaker:
The denomination Special Cuvee was created in 1911. The idea came from William Folks, then partner of the illustrious London House of Mentzendorff. This great wine lover felt it was an insult to simply call this great wine “non vintage”. The suggestion of naming it “Special Cuvee” was immediately approved by Monsieur Bollinger.

A blend par excellence, the Special Cuvee is the purest expression of the Bollinger style; of its craftsmanship and its singular conception of what a champagne should be. It is, therefore, on this wine that the House of Bollinger shows how it is different from other Champagne Houses, asserts its qualitative policy and by which it asks to be judged.

91 Points – Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate:
“Disgorged six months ago, the latest rendition of the NV Brut Special Cuvee 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 Cuvee in years where Grande Annee is produced – and to that end, Bollinger is significantly expanding its barrel program to ferment even more base wine in used oak.” – William Kelley (Apr 2019)