Glengarry Event Report

ROSE CHAMPAGNE

Event Venue	Glengarry Victoria Park, 118 Wellesley St West, Auckland
Event Date	7:00pm Wednesday 22 November

On Wednesday evening Regan hosted a spectacular Rose Champagne tasting at Vic Park. There seemed to be a lot of ladies in the audience this evening! We looked at NV wines from 8 different producers. Starting with the family operations of Moutard & Drappier. These are both produced by the difficult Saignee method (Maceration of the skins with the juice) and are exceptionally well priced. These are particularly vinous, and are produced 100% from Pinot Noir. Next up was Paul Bara and Philipponnat. Paul Bara is a Grower wine made from100% Grand Cru fruit from Bouzy in the Montagne de Reims, home of some of the finest Pinot in the region. Philipponnat are the owners of the famed single vineyard Clos de Goisses, and they blend their reserve wine in from a perpetual Solera (Each year the reserve wine is added to the existing wooden barrels, making it older and more complex). Then it was on to Veuve Clicquot, the first house to ever make a Rose Champagne in 1775. Made using a huge 50-60 different Crus, this is based on the Yellow Label with 12% Red Wine added. Charles Heidsieck Rose was impressive as always, a lot of it's complexity coming from the Red Wine that is aged up to 5yrs. We finished with a spectacular pair from Henri Giraud and Bollinger. Both houses are based in the Grand Cru village of Ay, and use some traditional Oak barrels in their production. The Giraud Dame Jane Rose was particularly interesting as the red wine is from 70yr old grand Cru Pinot Noir vines. This is fermented and aged for two years in Dame-Jane (Clay Amphora) before being blended in. This gives it a beautiful savoury nature that was different from everything else. Bollinger still keeps all of their reserve wine in individual Magnums under cork. When blending each has to be individually opened and checked, then poured bottle by bottle into the vats. As you can imagine, this is an incredibly time consuming and expensive method!