2012 Bollinger Grande Annee
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Tasting notes
For a Champagne that always rewards some patience, the 2012 is beautifully open and expressive from the get-go, offering up ripe, fresh, opulent fruit, with fantastic tension and acidity and a tightly wound core that promises great ageing potential. The wonderful smoky, nutty and caramel tones imparted by Bollinger’s distinct foudre ageing are already present, but more of a promise of future greatness than immediately in the foreground. The vintage was blessed by what the Champenois call a ‘Champagne miracle’ – a slightly overcast, damp start to the growing season finished off with a dry, sunny spell leading up to harvest – resulting in reduced yields of superbly concentrated, small-berried fruit. Both Chardonnay and Pinot Noir performed excellently and Bollinger was able to include fruit from 21 crus, including Aÿ, Verzenay, Le Mesnil and Oiry for the 65% Pinot Noir, 35% Chardonnay blend. The nose is immediately rich and toasty, with lovely ripe apricot, peach and apples, as well as honeyed hazelnuts and walnuts, and some warm ginger and cinnamon spice. Although exuberant there is also a cool, saline and mineral restraint, which is echoed on the palate, which offers fantastic depth and power, a super long, luxurious yet fresh finish and a wonderful silkiness of texture. This is fabulous now, already beckoning the drinker with its open charm, yet the tightly wound core and electric energy promises great ageing potential.
Critic scores
Average Score
William Kelley, Wine Advocate
Richard Juhlin
More reviews and scores
Disgorged in July 2019, Bollinger's 2012 Brut La Grande Année is showing well, offering up an incipiently complex bouquet of crisp yellow orchard fruit, fresh peach, orange oil, toasted walnuts and dried apricot that's still quite reserved with less than a year on cork. Full-bodied, deep and muscular, the 2012 is blockier and broader-shouldered than its 2008 predecessor, with a weightier and even more concentrated palate built around a bright spine of acidity, concluding with a chalky finish that carries appreciably dry extract. This isn't quite as elegant as the exquisite 2008, but it is a superb effort and obviously built to age.
I love the magical moment when I get the chance, as the first journalist, to lighten the cork of the latest vintage of Bollinger La Grande Année…….The wine is made from 21 villages with Aÿ and Verzenay in the driver's seat backed by elegance from Le Mesnil-sur-Oger and Oiry. The wine is characterized by vitality and energy more than depth at present. The color has a brilliant golden glow and the mousse is almost panting in its resilient youthfulness. The scent is beautifully house typical, dominated by apricot, almond, hazelnut and a smoky sophisticated intensity as from a newly lit outdoor fire. The attack is stunningly intense and the weight in the oral cavity leaves nothing left to wish for. Resilient energy and fullness are combined with greatness. Anyone who has patience will be rewarded with truffled flavor layers, chocolate saturated complexity and added exoticism of honeysuckle in the wine's bouquet.
About the producer
Bollinger is one of the most renowned and coveted Champagne Houses in the world, famous for its Pinot-Noir-dominant wines, in particular La Grande Année and the rare Vieilles Vignes Françaises (from pre-phylloxera vines).