Decanter om:
Champagne La Côte aux Enfants Grand Cru Brut
As the celebrated Vieilles Vignes Françaises plots slowly succumb to phylloxera, Bollinger is introducing a limited production of Champagne from the celebrated Côte aux Enfants vineyard in Aÿ, which has long yielded red wines for the house's rosé wines. It's clearly a stunning site, with a huge natural undertow of stony, saline energy that is magnified by 2014's natural zip. Already it's a wine with a stunning compression of flavours waiting to emerge. There's a vein of roasted hazelnut, cocoa and nutmeg spiciness, and it's savoury and serious rather than sweet-toned, with charry roasted apricot and tangy greengage fruit. Complexities of honey, turmeric and iodine emerge with some time, as does a savoury hint of forest floor, that may build with time. The overarching impression, though, is of a wine of tremendous inner power and imperious build.