Not every prestige champagne is quite as limited edition as you might think – Dom Perignon, for example, doesn’t release figures but is believed to produce up to five million bottles a year (a figure that’s entirely feasible given its owner Moët Hennessy’s status as Champagne’s largest vineyard holder.)
If you want a real unicorn from a big name, then try Champagne Bollinger, which quietly makes a trio of collectable cuvées from some of its rarest vineyards.
The first two wines – a champagne and a still red – come from La Côte aux Enfants, a single 10-acre plot just a few minutes drive from Bollinger’s home in Aÿ.
The first thing to note about this vineyard is it’s rather steep; about 45 degrees. When I climbed it on a rather drizzly day last month, my companions were sliding all over the place (I had chosen stoutness over style when it came to footwear, thankfully). The vineyard used to be steeper – and it’s thought that ‘Enfants’ (‘children’) is in fact a corruption of ‘Enfers’, or Hell, a nickname given by pickers who had to haul runoff soil up its treacherous chalky slopes.
See also: Upscale Parties Call for These Champagne Cocktail Recipes
Today, the vineyard’s primary job is to provide the still red wine for Bollinger’s rosé champagnes. (Indeed, Aÿ used to be famous for its still reds, which were a particular favorite of King Henry IV). But Bollinger also releases small amounts as a standalone still wine, or Coteaux Champenois, made from fruit grown on the warmer, south-facing slope.
With the vineyard’s wet mud drying on my boots, I tasted Bollinger’s Coteaux Champenois 2019. Made with whole cluster fruit, in the Burgundy style, it is a deep dark, red; very expressive on the nose with floral blackberry and juicy black cherry aromas. On the palate, it is generous, silky, and concentrated, with a hint of vanilla tobacco. Only produced in the best years, it retails for around £100 (approx. $133).
Bollinger La Grande Année Rosé 2018, which will be released in autumn, also has five percent Cote aux Enfants red wine in the mix, resulting in a gorgeously creamy, textural rosé with piquant notes of rhubarb and bittersweet orange. A serious rosé from a fabulous vintage that is destined to age well.
Fruit from La Côte aux Enfants’ cooler northern slopes is also bottled, occasionally, as a single-vineyard blanc de noirs champagne of the same name. Less than 5,000 bottles of this are produced and retail for around £1,000 (approx. $1,338).
The 2013 La Côte aux Enfants is quite racy. I preferred the 2014 which is more vinous and richer, with a sweet-and-savoury blend of leesy, almost cheesy creaminess and crystallized tropical fruits.
Not rarified enough for you? Then there’s also Bollinger Vielles Vignes Françaises, a cuvée made from two historic Bollinger plots totalling 31 ‘ares’ or just three-quarters of an acre.
See also: Sakura Season Is Brief – These Are the Drinks to Try While It Lasts
These plots are prized because they contain some of the last surviving un-grafted vines in Champagne (ever since French vineyards were devastated by phylloxera in the late 19th century, Champagne vines have always been grafted). It’s thought that the walls around the vineyards help to give them some protection.
A typical vintage amounts to 2,000 bottles – but that figure’s falling all the time, says Bollinger’s managing director Charles-Armand de Belenet. “With climate change. winter is less cold, so the phylloxera is growing. There’s also less water, so when it’s sunny there’s a heatwave in the clos. Yield is collapsing year on year. It’s emotional every time we taste this wine as we don’t know if we will taste it in a few years.”
A while back, I had the opportunity to taste the Bollinger Vielles Vignes Françaises 2012 – it was aromatic, nutty, and spicy. The old vines also gave it great concentration; lovely notes of fruit leather, hazelnut, and membrillo. £1360 (approx. $1,820) from champagne specialists The Finest Bubble. Drink now. Don’t wait.