Glengarry Event Report

ANNUAL PRESTIGE CUVÉE CHAMPAGNE TASTING

Event Venue	Glengarry Wines 118 Wellesley St West Auckland
Event Date	7:00pm Thursday 28 November

One of the highlights of the year for many customers, Is the annual Prestige Cuvée Champagne tasting. Hosted by our Fine Wine Maanger Regan McCaffery he always presented a lineup of the worlds greatest Champagnes, and this year was no exception. Rather than looking at 8 different houses as usual, this year we concentrated on just four Maison; Taittinger, Dom Pérignon, Louis Roederer, and Henri Giraud. From each house we looked at both their Prestige Cuvee, and the Rosé version of the same wine. The Rosé Prestige wines are incredibly expensive and rare bottles, so the opportunity to try these side by side was amazing. We started with two of the most elegant Champagnes out there, Comtes de Champagne 2007 and Comtes de Champagne Rosé 2006. Then to possibly the most famous wine in the world, Dom Pérignon 2008 and Dom Pérignon Rosé 2006, both under the spectacular Lenny Kravitz Limited Edition labels. Next up was two heavy hitters, Louis Roederer Cristal 2008 and Cristal Rosé 2008 (at an eye watering $900 a bottle). This is one of the most powerful and concentrated Cristal's ever made, from one of the greatest vintages of modern times, it requires at least a decade of cellaring to show it's potential. The Rosé version was as close to perfection as it can be, but also needs time to really show it's class. Finally we finished with Henri Giraud Argonne 2011 and Argonne Rosé 2004. Both are polarizing wines due to the use of 100% new Argonne Oak, a technique pioneered by Claude Giraud. This means that these are also wines to let rest for more than a decade. The latter is the most expensive Rosé Champagne in the world at $1800 a bottle. The price makes more sense when you realise there was only 328 bottles produced, from the single best barrel of Argonne 2004, blended with a few precious litres of Grand Cru Ay Pinot Noir Rouge. We were incredibly surprised to find that the New Zealand allocation of just 6 bottles, was the very first bottles produced, with serial numbers 1-6!