Veuve Clicquot Vintage Reserve 2008 Champagne 1.5L

New to this 2008 Vintage: 5% of the wines were produced and aged in wooden casks from forests in Central France, from Allier and Vosges. This was to increase the complexity and aromatic richness of our Vintages, our gourmet wines. These cask-aged wines constitute the spices of the blend. Their aromas are very lightly woody, vanilla with toasted aromas.

Technical Information:
Grape Varieties: 61% Pinot Noir, 34% Chardonnay, 5% Pinot Meunier
Ageing: 8 years on the lees
Dosage: 8 g/l
Drink: Now to 2030

Tasting Note: This has a fine bead of bubbles present with a golden yellow colour. On the nose: white fruits and nicely balanced citrus notes. On the palate: the Pinot Noir dominance shines through but is balanced perfectly by the delicate Chardonnay. Ripe fruits and some hints of brioche on the finish. A great non-vintage.

Founded in 1772, Veuve Clicquot is a House steeped in rich history that owes its success largely to one woman. When Barbe-Nicole Clicquot-Ponsardin was widowed in 1805 at the age of just twenty-seven, she boldly took over sole management of the business and changed the future of Champagne forever. Displaying serious business acumen early in her tenure, decisions such as defying the blockade during the Napoleonic Wars and secretly shipping champagne to Russia gave Veuve Clicquot a significant lead over other Houses post-war. Madame Clicquot also invented the riddling rack at her kitchen table - an apparatus that removes the sediment from the bottle after second fermentation still used in the region today.

Privileged to a respectable 382-hectare estate with facilities to envy, Veuve Clicquot today run an immense operation in Reims. The House style is voluptuous and deeply fruity with a preference for Pinot Noir dominance. An unusually large proportion of old reserve wines give their non-vintage champagne nuances and depth not found elsewhere and their vintage expressions are deliciously ageing classics. Industry genius, Dominique Demarville has been ensuring Veuve Clicquot's continued success as Cellar Master since 2008.

Cellar Master: Dominique Demarville
Winery Location: Reims | Champagne, France
Champagne Region: Montagne de Reims
Annual Production (bottles): Undisclosed

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Philippe Clicquot founded Veuve Clicquot in 1772, making it one of the oldest houses in Champagne. Coming from a family of bankers and textile merchants, Philippe purchased a number of vineyards and decided to establish a wine business under the family name. His vision was to sell his Champagne ‘across all borders’.

In June 1798, Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin married Philippe’s son, Francçois-Marie Clicquot in a wedding service held in the winery’s cellars, kept secret due to the ongoing French revolution. Auspiciously, the priest gave the happy couple a book by Dom Pérignon. The famous 17th century monk Dom Pérignon had written about new methods of producing sparkling wine. By combining several varieties of grape into an assemblage, he was able to harness the fermentation process, however the ‘vin du diable’ (wine of the devil) had yet to be completely tamed. Yeast would form sticky laments and leave a deposit that made the finished wine cloudy and spoiled its taste. But Madame Clicquot would change all that.

The Code Napoleon and bourgeois codes of behaviour forced French women to live in the shadow of their husbands. It took a woman with confidence and a fair amount of grit to venture into business. Barbe-Nicole Clicquot was one such woman: widowed at the age of 27 and with a three-year-old daughter, she convinced her father-in-law to let her manage the business and went on to achieve iconic status among champagne buffs.

Assisted by her cellar man Antoine-Aloys de Muller, Madame Clicquot perfected the art of ‘remuage’ or riddling. Special racks were produced to hold the bottles at an angle and over a six-to-eight-week period the bottles were rotated by a quarter-turn every day, gradually settling the lees in the neck of the bottle. The cork was then drawn, the sediment removed and liqueur de tirage (a mixture of still wine and sugar) added. Once this technique was perfected the champagne was crystal clear. With a few minor improvements, this method is still used today.

From 1876 onwards the company bottled all the dry champagne destined for Britain with a yellow label. When Madame Clicquot died in July 1866, newspapers all over the world paid tribute to the old lady. She and her loyal assistants had conquered the world and sales had reached a staggering 750,000 bottles a year!

Today’s Chef de Cave, Dominique Demarville, explains the production ethos behind Clicquot’s characterful, full-bodied and pinot-focused wines: “Veuve Clicquot is a big house where we have a huge responsibility to maintain the style, but every day we work to improve the quality.” Privileged to a respectable 382 hectares with facilities to envy, the house runs a huge operation in Reims.