N.V. Bollinger Special Cuvee

60% Pinot Noir/25% Chardonnay/15% Pinot Meunier, 7gm dosage

Bollinger Special Cuvee is one of the great Grand Marque non-vintage sparkling wines of Champagne. It gains a headstart from the beginning, with roughly a fifth of the base wine fermented in oak, the rest in stainless steel. Madame Lily Bollinger insisted on maintaining fermentation in oak for a part of the cuvee, in an era when Champagne was stitching more-or-less wholesale to steel. (`It is the traditional methods that count, even if they appear outdated: the quality of my wines is proof of this.`) Then, unusually, the reserve wines that go into Special Cuvee are stored in magnum, which allows them to develop whilst at the same time guarding against oxidation. The final assemblage of Special Cuvee is a blend of three vintages plus five percent of those reserve wines from magnum. (NT 20/06/25)