Beschreibung:

BOLLINGER This ancient house was founded in 1918 by Joseph Bollinger. However, his son Jacques's widow Lily Bollinger is most noted for her mark on the maison. With a high standard for quality, she forged the house's reputation as a high quality champagne producer. Madame Bollinger was also known to cycle through the vineyards carefully watching each grape bunch. Perhaps the modern vineyard workers still feel her presence, as careful attention to the vineyards continues. The maison supplies 70 percent of their production through their own 144 hectares planted mainly to Pinot Noir. This high rate of vineyard holdings allows for greater consistency of fruit selection in an increasingly competitive seller's market for fine champagne grapes. The champagne is vinified in small oak barrels created by Champagne's last cooper. The barrels that are at least four years old impart aromatics and complexity to the wine, as well as a small amount of deliberate oxidation. Malolactic fermentation is not encouraged and a low dosage level allows the character of the wine to shine through unclouded. Today Bollinger is known as one of the heaviest, most full, "leesy" styles of all the major champagne houses. The "RD" or recently disgorged cuvée is aged for a minimum of eight years on its lees in reserve magnums with cork stoppers. The lengthy time spent on the lees is both an expensive process as much as it is a provider of freshness, complexity, and perhaps even longevity. The Vieilles Vignes Françaises is made from three plots of vines planted exclusively to Pinot Noir in Montagne de Reims located in grand crus Bouzy and Aÿ. Unexplainably these vines were not hit by the louse phylloxera when surrounding vines in Champagne were all devastated around 1860. Today these vines remain ungrafted and the harvest is limited to three to four bunches per vine unlike the 15 to 18 commonly harvested. Only about 3,000 bottles are produced and it is released in exceptional years. The success of the maison suggests that many subscribe to the great Madame Bollinger's words, "I drink it when I'm happy and when I'm sad. Sometimes I drink it when I'm alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I'm not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it - unless I'm thirsty." DVR Bollinger Extra Brut. R.D--Vintage 1975 Aÿ Disgorged September 4, 1995 Torn label "For several years the best Champagne I'd drunk. The critics are unanimous - this is a great vintage for Bollinger. Some bottles with the Année Rare label have been too young and closed. The wine is best appreciated two or three years after being disgorged, when its classic hazelnut tones and rich flavor of truffles, cheese and chocolate appear more clearly in the relatively hard and acidic wine. The aftertaste is majestic, with layers of nut and leather aromas." Richard Juhlin, Jan 2003 1 jeroboam (3 liters) per lot