A Grande return

Moving house and being in hospital have kept me away from the internet for a while, but I return with a review of a wine with grand pretensions.

Laurent Perrier la Grande Siecle La Cuvée

I remember having an excellent bottle of this about five years ago; I recall the smoothness of the mousse and the mature softness of it. I picked up another bottle at a bargain price in France (half what it costs in the UK) and tried it again. This is a true multi-vintage wine, made from three good vintages in recent-ish years. I am told the current release is based on 1996, 1993 and 1990 but this could well be wrong. The wine had a mature nose and palate, with a rounded and polished mousse. It was quite silky. Sadly, it appeared to lack much in the way of complexity, and was very short. It had the oddly ‘face-lifted’ character of Bollinger RD: mature yet fresh and fizzy. I don’t like this character. I was not terribly impressed.

I have another bottle that I shall try ageing for a few years, but as far as non-vintage prestige cuvées go I think Gratien Cuvée Paradis is much better. And Krug, obviously.