2000 Bollinger La Grande Année

The 2000 Brut La Grande Annee is a ripe, open wine bursting with generous, expansive fruit. Smoke, minerals, pastry crust and flowers add complexity to the radiant fruit. The Grande Annee reveals gorgeous depth and a multi-dimensional, kaleidoscopic personality that screams of pure breed. The 2000 will be a fascinating vintage to follow. I am not sure it has the freshness to be an extremely long-lived wine, but it does a fabulous job in capturing the Bollinger house style. The 2000 Grande Annee is 63% Pinot Noir, 37% Chardonnay of which 76% is Grand Cru and 24% is Premier Cru. This is Lot L911736. Disgorged January 19, 2009. Anticipated maturity: 2010-2020. This is an exceptional set of new wines from Bollinger, one of Champagne’s historic houses. From top to bottom, there isn’t anything Bollinger isn’t doing well these days. I recently sat down with Chef de Caves Matthieu Kaufmann to taste through a range of the house’s 2009s. Readers will find notes on that tasting on www.erobertparker.com One of the distinguishing features of the Bollinger style is the aging of reserve wines in magnum under cork (not crown seal), a painstaking labor of love. Bollinger also has some of the most informative back labels among the region’s larger producers. It would be great to see Krug, Moet & Chandon, Roederer, Taittinger, Veuve Cliquot and a number of the region’s big houses follow suit. Importer: Terlato Wines International, Lake Bluff, IL; tel. (847) 604-8900

(63% pinot noir and 37% chardonnay) Bright yellow-gold. High-pitched aromas of lemongrass, orange peel, pear and white pepper, with a slow-building smokiness. Energetic, sharply focused citrus flavors gain depth with air, picking up deeper orchard and pit fruit character while retaining vivacity. Leaves a trail of piquant minerals and citrus zest behind on the long, tight finish. I'd let this rest for at least another five years.

Light gold. Very full on and open, even verge-of-oxidized on the nose. Very broad and a little oaky. Lots of mass on the palate but no sweetness. Bone dry and admirably distinctive. Very fine, dense, tiny-beaded wine with layers. Demands attention. Real tingle on the finish. Though it’s not desperately long..? Some people might find this a little bit too much. (JR)