Super scoring Vintage Champage 97 points Wine Spectator - La Grande Année is the perfect champagne for gourmet food.
To the eye: The delicate colour and golden hues are a sign of the wine's maturity
and reflective of Bollinger's wine-making methods.
To the nose: Full and expressive. Apricot, almond and hazelnut, followed by notes
of honey and cereals intertwining in a symphony of aromas.
On the palate: Exceptional texture and structure. Dense, silky with a long finish.
Fresh and full with a delicious refined finish.
La Grande Année is the embodiment of the carefully preserved traditional expertise of
the Bollinger Champagne House. The wine is therefore exclusively vinified in small aged
oak barrels. Champagne Bollinger has never abandoned this traditional craft method, which
helps develop aromas of great finesse. After a prolonged ageing on its lees, even today every
bottle of La Grande Année is riddled and disgorged by hand.
21 crus: Mainly Aÿ and Verzenay for the Pinot Noir, Le Mesnil-sur-Oger and Oiry
for the Chardonnay.
Exclusive use of the cuvée.
Fermented entirely in aged oak barrels.
At Bollinger, only very high quality harvests become a vintage: the exceptional
2012 vintage led to Bollinger creating expressive wines that were simultaneously
full, fresh and complex.
Maturation: Sealed with a natural cork and cellar aged for more than twice the
time required by the appellation.
Dosage: Moderate, 8 grams per litre. The final blend is made up of 61% Pinot Noir and 39% Chardonnay
96 Points - Richard Juhlin. "Overall, this is an extremely beautiful and complex Bollinger on the finer and more elegant half of the whole. I love how you find new little details in a harmonious simplicity with each new sip. Fascinating and beautiful already, and without a doubt one of the vintage's rare hits."
98 points - Vinous "La Grande Année is stunning. In fact, it is one of the best recent editions I can remember tasting"
97 points - Tyson Stelzer. "A truly great Bollinger by every measure, blessed with incredible longevity, and grand testimony to the wizardry of this house to draw out all the glories of endurance and elegance from a less than simple season."
