Veuve Clicquot - Brut Champagne Gold Label Vintage Reserve 2012 (750ml)

 Producer Notes:

 The uniqueness of the Vintage 2012 lies in the addition of 11% of wines aged in large wooden casks (foudres), bringing strength and aromatic intensity. The cask-aged wines act as spices to the blend, bringing very lightly woody, vanilla and toasted aromas. Vintage 2012 is the expression of a prodigious harvest, despite an extremely challenging climate throughout the year. 

 

In 1810, Madame Clicquot invented the first Vintage Champagne, in 2012 Veuve Clicquot declared the 66th vintage of the Maison. With grapes exclusively from Grands and Premiers Crus, Pinot Noir dominates the blend (51%) and provides the structure that is so typically Clicquot, followed by Chardonnay (34%) that adds finesse and elegance essential in a perfectly balanced wine, and then Meunier (15%) that rounds out the blend.

This focuses on red fruit (51 percent pinot noir, 15 percent meunier), with chardonnay providing the balance, all of it from premier or grand cru sites. A portion of the blend (11 percent) was aged in foudres, adding power to the wine’s structure without diminishing its scent of spring flowers, a sunny, floral note that contrasts the wine’s chalk cloud of minerality and its rich depths of flavor. A great vintage from Clicquot, this is fresh, grand and giving. Disgorged 8/18, 12/2019.

This is a vintage very much in the producer's style. It is soft, with a dosage that gives baked-apple flavors as well as acidity. Both need to come together in this young wine. Its dosage will allow it to age well into a toasty old age. Roger Voss, 12/31/2019.

Sleek acidity frames this harmonious Champagne, with flavors of lemon curd and crushed blackberry, accented by pistachio, anise and fleur de sel notes. Creamy and well-meshed, showing zesty drive on the finish. Disgorged August 2018. Drink now through 2027. Alison Napjus, 12/15/2019.