Community Tasting Note

forceberry wrote:

Wednesday, September 27, 2017 - A blend of two consecutive vintages, fermented with indigenous yeasts, aged in oak barrels and blended with a 5% addition of red wine from Egly-Ouriet. Disgorged on Feb 11th 2015. Annual production 6000 bottles. Served blind.

Pale, orange-tinted honey-yellow color. Ridiculously complex and expressive nose with a stunning array of aromas: roasted nuts, toasty autolysis, smoke, some burnt sugar, a little bit of dark-roasted coffee grounds, a little bit of biscuit, a hint of bacon and charred pork fat and a touch of caramel. The wine is bone-dry yet ripe and weighty on the palate with highly complex and savory flavors of toasty autolysis, ripe citrus fruit, mocha, baked apple, light notes of roasted oats and honey, a little bit of crème brûlée, a hint of chalky minerality and a touch of smoke. Overall the wine shows very vinous and concentrated character, yet isn't heavy or ponderous at all. The mousse feels rich, yet very fine and smooth. The finish is long, steely and powerful with intense, bone-dry flavors of roasted nuts, exotic spices, some oxidative bruised apple character, a little bit of autolytic toast and brioche, a hint of toffee and a touch of smoke.

A real stunner. In a blind tasting of grower Champagnes no wine stood a chance against this. This is a real vinous powerhouse with remarkable structure, depth and power, yet it doesn't come across as a cumbersome, monolithic monster wine, but instead one that is surprisingly light on its feet. As opposed to some other Selosse wines I've had, this showed surprisingly little of that famous "Selosse oxidation" - you could smell and taste that the wine was made oxidatively, but the emphasis here was still on vibrant, bone-dry fruit, nutty autolytic notes and delicate nuances from the barrel aging, not anything noticeably oxidative or any other "Sherried" characteristics, as often described by some critics of the Selosse style. All in all, this was not only the wine of the night (not just for me, but probably for everybody who attended), but also one of the greatest rosé Champagnes I've had. You'd almost not want to like these wines because everybody raves about how great they are, but the fact remains that the wines really are as good as they say. Just wow.

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