Champagne Lanson Vintage Collection vertical: 1961 – 2004

Lanson’s vintage Champagne is legendary among those in the know, highly prized for its scintillating finesse and exceptional longevity.

The house’s track record is long and distinguished, and many Champagne connoisseurs fondly remember the Red Label, as Lanson’s vintage cuvée was known in the 1960s and 1970s, packaged in a unique and distinctive bottle shape known as the ‘quille’.

Scroll down to see scores and tasting notes for 19 vintages of Lanson Vintage Collection

Vintage Collection: rare and iconic

There were five vintages released in this format—1964, 1966, 1969, 1971 and 1975 (there were some bottles of 1961 that were also transferred into the quille but that were originally made in regular bottles) – but after 1975, this was discontinued, partly due to unwanted connotations related to Johnnie Walker’s Red Label whisky.

The 1976, bottled in a normal champagne bottle, was labelled simply as a vintage brut, and this continued up until the 1989 vintage, which was the first to be called Gold Label, aligning with Lanson’s branding of other cuvées such as the Black Label brut and the Rose Label rosé. While this enjoyed great success, in 2020 Lanson rebranded its line-up once more, and the vintage cuvée is now labelled ‘Le Vintage’, beginning with the current release of 2009.

Since 2012, Lanson has also re-released older vintages under the label Collection. These are mostly in magnum, due to that format’s superior ageability, although some 75cl bottles are also available.

As of this writing, there are 13 vintages of Collection, from 1976 to 1999, and all are aged in the cellar sur pointe on their lees, with a limited number periodically disgorged to order, dosed at 3g/L.

Even rarer are vintages older than 1976, which are not technically part of the Collection program, but which can occasionally appear at auction, released directly from the house.

See all Decanter’s Champagne Lanson scores and tasting notes

In July 2021, I was invited by Lanson to taste a Collection retrospective, including a number of older vintages back to 1961, as well as a preview of a couple of future releases. These were all in magnum, and with the exception of the 1982, they were all disgorged within the last four years (the 2002 and 2004, which have not yet been released as Collection, were disgorged by hand the morning of the tasting).

Consistent elegance, trademark ageability

The cuvée has remained remarkably consistent over the past six decades: it’s almost equal parts Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, with the latter usually in slightly higher proportion, and it’s principally from grand cru vineyards in the Côte des Blancs and Montagne de Reims, although in the past it has also included some top premier crus such as Mareuil-sur-Aÿ, Dizy or Trépail.

It’s made entirely without malolactic fermentation, a signature of the Lanson style, and besides imparting structure and vivacity, this seems to also bestow a certain finesse and clarity of flavour.

Its reputation for longevity is also well-deserved, as these tasting notes indicate, with all of the wines appearing vibrant, energetic and even youthful —keep in mind that these were all in magnum, and the same wines in 75cl bottles would likely also be enjoyable but different in character, even assuming perfect storage.

Disgorgement also has a role to play, although I am not of the opinion that the most recently disgorged versions are necessarily the best, and a number of these wines appeared to have benefited from some post-disgorgement age.

I would be quite pleased to find examples of older disgorgements, and I expect all of these wines to continue to enjoy a long and slow development in the cellar.

Champagne Lanson: 19 vintages of Vintage Collection

Wines are shown by vintage, in ascending order. Selected vintages are available in the UK from The Champagne Company.

Related content

Champagne Salon vertical: 1982 – 2008

Perrier-Jouët Belle Epoque: brut vintage and blanc de blancs vertical tasting