About
Bollinger's calling card: 60% Pinot Noir, 25% Chardonnay and 15% Meunier, with 85% of the fruit drawn from Grand and Premier Cru villages. Around 30% ferments in small used oak casks, half the final blend is reserve wine — including 5 to 10% aged in magnum under cork for up to fifteen years — and the whole matures 30 to 36 months on lees, more than twice the appellation minimum. Roasted apple, compote and white peach give way to velvet bubbles, brioche, ripe pear and a signature finish of fresh walnut.
The fruit is drawn from all three heartland districts, the Montagne de Reims, the Côte des Blancs and the Vallée de la Marne. Bollinger grows the majority of what it uses, which is rare among the big houses. Its 178 hectares sit 85 percent in Grand and Premier Cru villages, with Pinot Noir at Aÿ, Verzenay and Louvois among them.
The house dates to 1829, when Athanase de Villermont went into partnership with Joseph Bollinger and Paul Renaudin at Aÿ. The name Special Cuvée came later, in 1911. The British agent decided that "non-vintage brut" undersold the wine and coined something better. Around 800,000 magnums of reserve wine rest in the cellars at any one time, a practice no other house follows.
Dosage sits at 7 to 8 grams a litre. Serve it at 8 to 10 degrees, and try it with a scallop carpaccio.
Structure
Grape
Picked on Stef's structure profile.
