First Taste: Champagne Palmer & Co’s Grands Terroirs 2015 and 2012

Champagne Palmer has released two separate vintages of its premium cuvée Grands Terroirs in different bottle sizes.

These follow on from the original release in 2018 of the very particular 2003 vintage – at the time the earliest and hottest ever harvest in Champagne – which was only made available in magnum.

The first of this new pair, the 2015 vintage, is released in bottle (75cl), while the highly-regarded and widely-declared 2012 vintage of Grands Terroirs is only available in magnum.

Larger format bottles like this are a particular speciality of this Champagne house, which is based near the centre of Reims. In deference to the longer ageing which magnums need to reach similar levels of maturity to 75cl bottles, they typically see two to three years further ageing in the cellars before release.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for Grands Terroirs 2015 and 2012

Palmer & Co is one of the few houses not using transavage for its larger formats – whereby wines from 6-litre Methusalem right up to the giant 15-litre Nebuchadnezzar are fermented in the bottle in which they are sold, restricting loss of pressure and maintaining freshness.

Why ‘Grands Terroirs’?

The name Grands Terroirs is a reference to the vineyards owned by the original group of growers that set up the Société des Grands Crus de la Champagne. This was the name of the cooperative which produced the Champagne Palmer brand back in 1947 when it was based in Avize.

Palmer then moved to Rue Jacquart near the centre of Reims in 1959. This location better reflects the importance of the nearby Montagne de Reims grand and premier cru vineyards, which form the heart of most of the cuvées in the range.

These vineyards are mainly located on the north-facing slopes of the Montagne de Reims in the grands crus of Mailly and Verzenay, renowned for their super fresh Pinot Noir that ages gracefully over time.

Top premier cru sites Villers-Marmery and Trépail also feature, where Chardonnay is the most widely planted grape. Pinor Noir dominates the rest of the Montagne de Reims. Villers-Marmery is also a village favoured by Ruinart in its top cuvées, and by Rare Champagne.

‘A tribute to the founders of the brand’

Palmer has been producing vintage Champagne since the outset, releasing 60 different vintages since 1947.

The Grands Terroirs cuvée, which closely follows the original recipe for its vintage blends, is seen as a ‘tribute to the founders of the brand,’ says marketing director François Demouy.

‘They will only be made in years where the quality is exceptional. We started with the 2003, a very specific year that few houses vintaged, partly because the crop was so small.’

Overall production of Grands Terroirs is very small scale, particularly for the small 2012 vintage.

The 2015 Grands Terroirs is to be released in magnum in two years’ time (Palmer thinks that magnums need a minimum of nine years lees ageing). It is from a hot, dry year where the cool nights in the second half of August nonetheless allowed grapes to ripen perfectly. The assemblage here is more Chardonnay dominant, with Trépail and Villers-Marmery villages accounting for 50% of the blend. There’s less Pinot Noir than the 2012, at 38%, while there’s more Meunier (12%) from Ludes, Chigny-Les-Roses and Rilly-la-Montagne villages.

The blend for the 2012 magnum, with 49% Pinot Noir, bears more of the fingerprint of Mailly and Verzenay. The Pinot Noir from these north-facing crus is tinged with the yuzu flavours of lemon, grapefruit and mandarin orange, plus a ginger-spiced generosity.

See tasting notes and scores for Grands Terroirs 2015 and 2012:

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