97pts James Suckling

Grilled bread with flowers, pears and apples. Lots of perfumes. Lavender and some herbs and nutmeg. The palate is tight and solid with fine phenolics and a long, intense finish. Pure and extremely linear and lively. Sophisticated and thought-provoking.

92pts Wine Spectator

A fresh and lacy Champagne, with a pleasing, creamy range of golden apple, blanched almond and lemon pound cake underscored by a streak of minerally saline and brine. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Drink now through 2030. 8,333 cases made, 1,100 cases imported.

92pts Wine & Spirits

A ghost of chardonnays past, this tastes like white grapefruit without the acidity, as if a grapefruit could age past its acidity and still remain fresh. From three estate parcels— chardonnay from Avize and Cramant, pinot noir from Aÿ—this is an elegant Champagne at a peak moment of maturity, flinty and airy with a deep leesy savor.

Tasting Notes

The wine has a yellow, slightly golden color with an exceptional brightness and limpidity. The effervescence is fine and delicate.

This 2005 is marked by floral notes in all their complexity. Owing to the long aging, notes of linden, hawthorn and vineyard peach. With its high purity, the bouquet is delicately blended with buttery notes. After aeration, the Pinot Noir expresses itself and the wine gains aromas of roasted hazelnuts and mild tobacco.

This wine is like a caress, its texture is velvety and creamy. The attack is frank, without asperity and imbalance. With incredible harmony and minerality, the heart of the tasting is intensive and structured. The finale, with the gentleness of honey and lemon, comes to punctuate this wine and provides the vintage with signature delicate flavor, noble bitterness and structure.

Winemaker Notes

The assemblage turned into an exercise blending pleasure and satisfaction, in quest of the best balance between the necessary and sufficient quantity of Bouzy red wine to be married with the classical assemblage of Louise of Avize, Cramant and Aÿ. This is how the assemblage wine imparts all the desired tenderness. During the years in the cellars, the bottles have reached the indispensable maturity that such a wine can claim. Today it is ready, to everybody’s great delight.