29/08/2024
Brilliantly looked after by the team at this afternoon and they capped it all by producing this surprise birthday cake for my wife Cathy. Superb.
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There he blogs about tastings, individual wines and what's going on in the region.
Giles Fallowfield, an award-winning journalist and Champagne specialist who has been writing about the region for over three decades founded Champagne Guru in 2011.
29/08/2024
Birthday celebration today for my wife Cathy requires a super classy fizz and this very much fits the bill. from the fine 2014 vintage just released it's fine, already texturally complex, intense, gorgeously vibrant. Dazzling.
09/08/2024
Nice to have honey for breakfast from a classy address
08/08/2024
Last night we celebrated medal successes in the cycling velodrome with a delightful glass of Nyetimber’s Classic Cuvée. One of the very first English fizzes to be made from the classic Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier trio as was one of the earliest producers to plant these three varieties in its Sussex vineyards over three decades ago.
As the official sparkling wine of Team GB for the Paris Olympics, has produced a special limited edition of its Classic Cuvée, their award winning, multi-vintage fizz, which is being poured at iconic UK restaurants and hotels throughout August including The Savoy Hotel, in Sussex, , Mayfair and The German Gymnasium in King's Cross. In addition is offering a Nyetimber celebration-themed afternoon tea in its Thames Foyer until 18 August.
As part of the summer of sport you can also sample this attractively fresh, sparkler that shows an impressive mid-palate intensity in the Wine Shop London where Nyetimber’s Rosé and are also available (2-6pm until tomorrow 9 August). Fortnum & Mason and Berry Bros. & Rudd also stock the special limited edition bottle (£41.50rrp).
14/06/2024
Fascinating line up of 2023 vins clairs and then vertical of with fabulous '98: followed by what a treat. Many thanks to Emmanuel Gouvernet one of Didier Mariotti's 12 strong winemaking team for talking us through them yesterday
06/06/2024
These chocolate biscuits I found in a store in 's delightful district last month are probably the nicest I've ever had. Any chance of stocking them?
20/05/2024
Fantastic long weekend in where we went to watch our two boys run the but lots more besides. Superb food and drink nearly everywhere we went and at this great bar called Bibendum we coincided with a tasting of fine German Rieslings by this man Sebastian Class whose company is looking for UK distribution at the until Wednesday with his company neverland-wine com Worth seeking out, you can find him on Stand X210 in Wines Unearthed
02/05/2024
Arrived in Copenhagen this afternoon to find a "heatwave" but delighted also our accommodation is only about 30;yards from this corner bar advertising its wares. And beer was appropriately CTP, -- chilled to perfection.
25/04/2024
Climax to a great evening of champagnes 🥂🍾🥂🍾 was this very fine all #2012 style with a lower pressure of 4.5atmospheres, presented in magnum and with a decent amount of age on the cork. Complex, biscuity, lovely chalky grip and mouth feel.
As aperitiv we had the super fresh and elegant 2014 all Pinot Mumm de Verzenay, also in magnum which immediately won everyone over to this exciting range of smartly presented RSRV wines, so under exploited as yet in the UK.
And prestige line Cuveé Lalou 2008 stands comfortably with the very best wines of this exalted vintage boasting a palate tension, finesse and intensity that's a real delight. A great evening with super food to match.
Many thanks to Edition wine director & Antoine flament
&foodmatching
06/03/2024
Very good of the managing editor Shay to make such kind comments about yours truly. Many thanks to his team, particularly Jaq and James for making the MACB supplement look so good this year. Great that they used my pictures of top winemakers like Hervé Dantan ; Odilon de Varine ; Benoït Gouez ; Emilie Boutillat & ; Michel Davesne ; Stephen Leroux & Elise Losefelt and Jean Garandon
For a page turning version of the Most Admired Champagne Brands supplement see link in Bio
05/03/2024
Superb Sunday night dinner .bruce with brilliant wines to match plus first class service from the front of house team. No surprise that both Nick Lander & Michel Roux rate this as some of the best food in London.
Anjou pigeon with quince purée, confit leg, offal pastry and green peppercorn sauce is culinary masterpiece and the lovely fresh, cherry fruited Château d'Etroyes 2019 1er Cru Mercury Le Clos L'Evéque worked really well with this dish. And this 50hectare estate is I note now owned by the family so may soon be on the Chez Bruce list given that connection.
The Krug 164ème based on 2008 harvest is still surprisingly fresh even though disgorged in summer 2017 nearly seven years ago and shows how if the base year has a very strong personality it's effect on this multi vintage blend is much more significant than in weaker years when the wine can be more complete and rounded.
19/02/2024
A magnificent lunch in followed with some more fizz -- fresh, lifted 2016 -- with our 'to die for' starters including Karwari soft shell crab.
We were beautifully looked after by manager Santosh who bought some of their own very decent Portuguese fizz Campolargo Bairrada 2017 to show us - an impressive blend of Arinto, Bical and Cereal, and as he said, a good match to their spicy food
19/02/2024
I have always fancied popping into to try out their ‘PressforChampagne’ buzzers and going out yesterday in Soho for a pre-birthday family lunch proved the perfect opportunity. Two glasses of &Chandon , for number 32; please; a delicious start to a lovely afternoon in luxurious surroundings ….
19/02/2024
I have always fancied popping into to try out their ‘PressforChampagne’ buzzers and going out yesterday in Soho for a pre-birthday family lunch proved the perfect opportunity. Two glasses of &Chandon , for number 32; please; a delicious start to a lovely afternoon in luxurious surroundings ….
15/01/2024
I see that Comptoir Café & Wine is offering SpecialCuvée at just £10 a glass or £60 a bottle throughout January. We'll be along Xavier. A bottle with some extra cellar age shared here on Xmas Eve was a delight
27/10/2023
Gorgeous colour, gorgeous wine to brighten up a gloomy evening on the south coast. The wines from Michel Drappier and his family just get better and better. There's so much rich ripe cherry fruit you'd never guess it was a Brut Nature style. This is a treat with some age on the cork only magnifying and enhancing the taste profile.
Drappier was the first house in the Côte des Bars my old friend at the CIVC Guillaume Bruneau took me to. And I've been going back to Urville and drinking their wines with pleasure for three decades as a result.
'sfinest
18/10/2023
Off to taste 11 past vintages of with this man. Including 1978 in mag, plus the 95, 96, 99 and 2002 in bottle. What a treat, which will show best? And of course '59 in mag!
09/10/2023
Laurent d'Harcourt presides over an excellent tasting of the current Pol range including Brut Réserve with a 2018 base, the current SWC 2015, and yet to be released In the UK, cherry fruited, but youthful Brut Vintage 2018 rosé
09/10/2023
Breakfast on the way to Champagne 🥂🍾🥂🍾 2018 base with reserve wine from 17 and 16 breakfast of kings
27/06/2023
A real pleasure to see today and taste his wines and hear some very interesting comments on the 'crisis' that is facing Champagne 's vineyards as harvests get warmer and alcohol levels rise with phenolic ripeness harder to achieve.
Very good too on the importance of the NV offering and the part the reserve plays as shown by the top quality 2020 base Cuvée de Resérve and the limited bottling of his resérve perpetual that is kept in s/s, concrete and oak casks the blend made up of his favourite three examples.
Very impressed too by the food and service at Harrods 5th floor restaurant Lovely expressions of matched with oysters lobster and turbot. Plus a great view of London. Superb
Many thanks to Rodolphe and
27/06/2023
Off to taste some serious styles of with this man at lunchtime today. Perfect midday break from decluttering my office!
15/06/2023
Proud dad bathing in reflected glory of our youngest 1st in computer science the glorious sunshine adding still more gloss to a truly memorable occasion
08/06/2023
Dinner under the stars last night lovely Aulnois property in where after a tasting and vineyard visit to Avenay, this beauty dreamed up by the late Laurent Fresnet and Joseph Henriot put in a notable appearance as the aperitiv.
only available in magnum, only 1,000 of which are released each year, comes from an all perpetual réserve they set up 33 years ago and this 5th release covers the vintages from 1990-2011. It comes from the four crus of Le Mesnil, Avize, Chouilly and Oger. Disgorged after six years with a dosage of 5gm/l it has had another five years or so on the cork.
It's amazing how this combination of older vintages and top crus produces -- perhaps contrary to expectations -- something remarkably fresh and lively with great energy plus chalky intensity. A delight and many thanks to for a terrific evening of lovely wines spanning seven decades.
&fine
03/06/2023
Celebrating our younger son's achievement in getting a first in we had to pick something special from the cellar. This bottle of 1995 which has sat on the cork for most of his lifetime seemed fitting. The best vintage of the 90s in far outclassing the overrated '96 (though I love some of the 99s) with its very rich golden colour, concentrated notes of orange zest and long, fine finish it was a suitably superb celebratory wine. Thanks to and all of friends at
22/02/2023
Off to taste some Noble this evening including the current 2004 Brut & plus some older vintages from the days when it was called Cuvée with '89 Brut &'96 blanc de Blanc's due to feature. Plus a snapshot of what the future holds. Can't wait....
22/02/2023
Two wines that in some ways represent different extremes of the market, though the quality of each is exemplary. The 1996 vintage was perhaps the first indication of Champagne's new extremes. With a sunny season producing high potential alcohol but wines that also had a vivid, and in many cases, an untamed acidity.
Taken from my cellar after about two decades on the cork, the 96 still bore the hallmark freshness of the vintage along with a toasty richness and some real depth. The Rendez-Vous No3 is pure & based on the sunny 2015 harvest.
This and other new multi vintage blends we now see probably wouldn't be made without the warmer climate Champagne is experiencing. And as the back label shows its Extra Brut with only 2gm/l dosage, though with its upfront fruitiness, you wouldn't know that.
Happily there's room for both. Different wines for different drinking occasions. Delightful in their individual ways.
10/11/2022
Matching fab with food at this evening a revelation; some great pairings like flambadour oyster, beurre blanc and smoked apple with Manzanilla Pasada de Sanlucar and brave ones: deeply concentrated, rich nutty Palo Cortado with birch flamed chanterelles, black truffle caramalised cream and flambadour lobster. Smoky notes and woody autumnal flavours plus fine dry sherry is a great combination.
A total delight many thanks to the team & to
27/10/2022
For those who were surprised at my suggestion earlier this week that may use as much as 50% reserve wine in its Brut Imperial blend here's what winemaker Benoit Gouez said in May 2018. And this magnum (pictured) was based on the 2017 harvest only three years later. The copy was run in champagne supplement in 2018.
Benoît Gouez, head winemaker at Moët & Chandon, who makes the appellation’s largest ‘non-vintage’ blend by a mile in the shape of Brut Impérial, says he can’t understand why most producers aren’t regularly using around 50% réserve wine in such blends. “For years we have been building up the réserve individuelle qualitative, so we now have levels around 8,000kgs/ha; most growers have that. And to keep freshness you need to replace half your réserve every year. If you use less you don’t have 8,000kgs/ha, or you let your réserve get older. We [at Moët] don’t want older réserve wine,” says Gouez.
“In the 2014 based blend of Brut Impérial there’s [mostly] 2012 and 2013 réserve. Historically it’s been more like 15-20% réserve wine, but while we didn’t want to change, in the last five years it’s up to 50%. Why people say ‘we use 30%’ I don’t understand. For me there is no choice, it’s just mathematical.”
Gouez isn’t saying that the wider increased use of vin de réserve is a bad development for champagne generally, but rather that from Moët’s perspective for elaborating Brut Impérial, where he’s looking for a “bright, fresh fruitiness” as well as some generosity and texture in the mouth, using so much réserve wine makes his job more difficult. To keep the style consistent, he’s had to take a new approach in making the three different blends of Brut Impérial he needs to produce every year to satisfy demand.
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Very good of the @drinksinternational managing editor Shay to make such kind comments about yours truly. Many thanks to his team, particularly Jaq and James for making the MACB supplement look so good this year. Great that they used my pictures of top winemakers like Hervé Dantan @champagnelanson ; Odilon de Varine @champagnegossetofficiel ; Benoït Gouez @moetchandon ; Emilie Boutillat @piper_heidsieck & @rarechampagne_official ; Michel Davesne @champagnedeutz ; Stephen Leroux & Elise Losefelt @charlesheidsieckchampagne and Jean Garandon @champagnejacquesson_officiel For a page turning version of the Most Admired Champagne Brands supplement see link in Bio
Unwrapping something special to taste the #2012vintage of @pol_roger #sirwinstonchurchillcuvée . I speculated about this wine, both when it would be launched and the style of the vintage, in my report on #PolRoger in the #MostAdmiredChampagneBrands report just published http://bit.ly/3qbIhFR in which Pol again made the top three. The 2009 vintage SWC was only launched in early 2020 and at the time described by Hubert de Billy as "a vintage for drinkers, not collectors". I'm expecting something different with the 2012, that's already proving to be a superb year for vintage Champagne 🍾🥂🍾🥂 @ldhpolroger #prestigecuvée #rarechampagne #instachampagne #champagnelovers #champagnelife
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