Bollinger - Champagner Grande Annee 2008

LISA PERROTTI-BROWN: "This is a regal and heroic Bollinger characterized by restrained power and energetic energy. I love meeting this untouched force and carefully analysing its sublime elements, but at the same time I have to admit that we are dealing with a real ´vin de garde´ that will not reach its maximum capacity before its 25th birthday. The structure is impressive, based of course on the high acidity of the vintage in the first place. This very high acid means that the other building blocks can appear as subordinate, but they have a great wealth of both oak embossed secondary aromas and flaunted dark fruit. At present, the aromatic spectrum is characterized by fresh hazelnuts from Piedmont, green apples, critical minerals and perfumed orange blossoms. Buy a box and follow its aromatic journey to heaven."

THE WINE ADVOCATE: "Bollinger´s 2008 La Grande Année is superb, wafting from the glass with aromas of crisp orchard fruit, ripe lemons, honeycomb, warm biscuits, dried white flowers and a delicate top note of walnuts and fino sherry. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, broad and vinous, with a beautifully refined mousse, superb concentration at the tightly wound core, incisive acids and a supremely elegant intermingling of Bollinger´s oxidative stylistic signatures with fresh, vibrant fruit. The finish is long, precise and chalky. This is a Grande Année built for the cellar—the real excitement will come with a bit more bottle age—but this is already a thrilling Champagne in the making. Finished with eight grams per liter dosage, it was disgorged by hand in July 2018. This is also the first vintage of Grande Année to be bottled in Bollinger´s new narrower-necked 1846 bottle, which should make for a slower evolving wine."

DECANTER: "In 2008, the remarkable maturity of the grapes combined with an amazing acidity has produced a vintage of great balance, concentration and depth. The wine was aged for nine years on its lees, then for another year following disgorgement. Bright straw in colour with pinprick bubbles, it blooms on the nose with a fresh lemon leaf aroma, a sniff of strawberry and white chocolate and a candied peanut toastiness in depth. On the palate it’s silky, broad and lingering, showing a kind of bittersweet fruit profile with grapefruit and peach kernel notes, and an amazing chalky, mineral finish. It will keep well. Wait to drink it if in magnum or bigger."

JANCIS ROBINSON: "The lightest of these, the most evanescent. Some astringency on the end. Rather loose-textured and the least developed in this blind tasting with, apparently, not that much persistence. Very embryonic."