The latest addition to our ever-expanding portfolio of champagne’s is Palmer & Co’s prestige cuvée blend, Amazone de Palmer & Co. This unique champagne is a true rarity: released once every five to six years, it is a blend of reserve wines produced from the greatest terroirs of the Montagne de Reims.
The latest release is a blend of three harvests: 2012, 2010 and 2009 (the previous edition was a blend of 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2006). These three exceptional vintages were selected based on their level of expression – cellar master Xavier Berdin believes they “strike the perfect balance”. Berdin further enriched this base vintage blend with a proportion of Palmer & Co’s unique Solera of Chardonnay, which is topped up every year and has been aged for several decades. The Solera contributes 18% to the final blend, which is 51% Chardonnay and 49% Pinot Noir.
True to Palmer’s founding values, only the very best grapes are used to create their iconic prestige cuvée. Fresh, concentrated Chardonnays, predominantly hailing from the Premier Cru vineyards of Trépail and Villers-Marmery were blended with robust, refined Pinot Noirs from the Grand Crus of Mailly and Verzenay. To achieve a wine of such ample and pure character, it is aged for ten years in the cool shade of Palmer’s chalk cellars in Reims.
Amazone de Palmer & Co NV is a champagne born from the very best winemaking practices: exclusive selection of the greatest terroirs of the Montagne de Reims, slow ageing on lees, and manual riddling on racks. The final composition is also sold in a uniquely oval shaped bottle which, for the first time, will be housed in an eco-responsible box that showcases the chalky hillsides and generous countryside from which this iconic champagne is produced.
The 100% eco-designed and 100% recyclable gift box represents an additional phase in the activation of the sustainable development progress plan that started in 2015. In 2019, the house unveiled their new environmentally friendly winery, only the second in the region (alongside Moët & Chandon’s facility in the Côte des Bar) to be certified HQE – High Environmental Quality. The state-of-the-art winery maximises natural light, harnesses the slope of the land to facilitate liquid flow by gravity, boasts a natural filtering eco-system to purify water, and is surrounded by wildflower meadows.
The construction of the winery was followed by the introduction of beehives in 2020 and a commitment to sustainable wine growing in 2021, with 220 hectares of vineyards being certified HVE3 and VDC. Amazone de Palmer & Co NV’s eco-designed and recyclable gift box marks the start of a new phase in Palmer & Co’s general Quality, Safety and Environmental policy that CEO Rémi Vervier firmly intends to establish: “We are determinedly looking to the future and are aware that it is necessary to move forward to make wines that respect the environment, uphold and protect the union between the terroir and people. We want to state loud and clear our strong values of ethics and excellence.”
This unique decorative finish was made possible through the use of Fibre-Form™ paper developed by Swedish company BillerudKorsnäs and the technical knowledge and know-how of French printing company Le Sanglier, resulting in an exceptional embossed effect. With this new box, Champagne Palmer & Co also reduces the weight of its packaging by 27%. FibreForm™ paper is made from 100 % FSC-certified virgin fibres from responsibly-managed forests.
Amazone de Palmer & Co NV is available to purchase now.
95/100 William Kelley | RobertParker.com Jan 2022 “A new prestige cuvée from Palmer, the debut release of the NV Brut Amazone is a blend of the 2012, 2010 and 2009 vintages, complemented by some 19% reserve wines drawn from a perpetual reserve, and it’s equal parts Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, all from the Montagne de Reims. Offering up aromas of crisp yellow orchard fruit, freshly baked bread, crisp nectarine, oyster shell and subtle hints of the biscuity complexity to come, it’s medium to full-bodied, pillowy and seamless, its fleshy core of fruit girdled by ripe but racy acids and complemented by a pearly mousse. Disgorged last year with six grams per liter dosage, it’s an impressively complete, well-structured wine that will be even better with a few years on cork.” |