December 24, 2023 - No formal notes.
July 28, 2023 - My first Couche Sensation Extra Dry, and I do like this style very much. Vibrant bubbles, the wine had personality, and was impressive, right away but with air, and after warming up, it became outstanding. It has prominent aromas and flavors of bread crust, brioche, and cashews and a lovely acid tension, with a long nutty finish. Drink to 2027 ?
May 12, 2023 - From Methuselah offered by US importer, consumed at Restaurant Xavier Mathieu in Provence. Spectacular. Prominent crust flavor from toast. Creamy. Real evolution as we drank through the bottle.
April 18, 2023 - Method: pop and pour; fridge temp to start; Glasvin Champagne glass
Look: pale copper/amber; many vigorous bubbles
Nose: floured bread crust, almond, chalk, light raw white mushroom
Palate: apple pie crust, yellow apple, pear; medium+ finish of almond and chalk; dry; medium amount of superfine bubbles; medium acidity; low- chalky tannin
Overall thoughts: The bubbles are wonderful and there are some nice yeasty notes, but otherwise the flavor isn't anything special, there wasn't much complexity, and nothing else especially stood out. Definitely much worse than the other bottles of had of this wine. This bottle was an outlier compared to the 3 others I've tasted of this. Hard to know if it's due to a bit more age, bottle variation, this being the only bottle I didn't acquire on release, or if my palate was a bit off. Still, it's got enough going on to be a pretty great wine.
April 18, 2023 - Nose: funky, mushroom, ripe yellow apple, buttered brioche, almond
Palate: yellow apple, pie crust, brioche, almond; super fine, elegant bubbles; med acidity; med finish of almond and brioche
November 20, 2022 - Surprising, a delightful treat. Opening to a clear golden hue this wine awakens in the glass and shows a mystery and enchantment that would welcome any champagne lover. Earthy notes with gentle hints of fruit on the nose, salinity hints on the nose draw you in like oyster liquor. Wonderfully ruddy rich taste, and the salinity is realy a beautiful cream butter cracker note with hints of sweet citrus make this a stunner of a wine, a pleasure to drink a pleasure shared by all who tasted this evening.
November 19, 2022 - This shows every bit of its 19 years on the lees. This has heavy, yeasty, autolytic, biscuit notes. If you don't like that, you will truly hate this wine. Additionally, the fruit, while pretty intense, expectedly has an older, dried, quality to it, along with notes of ginger and baking spices. At times it gets close to the line where oxidative, flips to oxidized. Thankfully, this still has quite vibrant acidity and mineral notes to spare, making it a lot more complex than just "old". If you like your Champagne light and fresh, don't drink this, but it really is a great example of an extended age style. I wouldn't push this too much longer and would say it's time to drink up.
October 27, 2022 - A real stunner. Creamy carbonation, lemon and sour cherry notes without being too acidic. Outperformed some other juggernaut champagnes served with it.
October 5, 2022 - Disgorged 2021 after 20+ years on lees.
Medium plus nose shows funk, earth, sour cherry, old flowers but it's all still fresh. Palate drinks with more of a wine like feel, lighter in the bubbles, has some Burgundian tones to it or aged Chenin like quality, finish adds all kinds of fun complexity and evolution, orange pith, marmalade, quince, nutty layers, structure does quite well framing it all. Great stuff.
August 12, 2022 - This was great a year ago. This bottle, however, was clearly flawed (oxidized?). Hardly any bead and tasted like an unpleasant sparkling apple cider.