‘It is a Grande Dame first and a rosé second,’ says Veuve Clicquot’s cellar master Didier Mariotti speaking of the newly released rosé cuvée of the 2015 La Grande Dame.
It is one year on from the 2015 release of the white iteration of this homage to one of Champagne’s most important historical figures – Madame Clicquot, the widow – or ‘veuve’ – who perfected the riddling process in the late 18th century.
But why the delay between the release of the white and the rosé? ‘We tend to find it needs this extra time to achieve the harmony between the red wine and the white,’ says Mariotti.
Indeed, Champagne’s rather unique method of rosé wine production – the only place in Europe where rosé is allowed to be made by the addition of red wine to white, a practice for which we also have the Grande Dame to thank – presents the need for a very particular skill: producing a still Pinot Noir red wine perfectly pitched not for a wine in its own right, but as a blending component.
It’s here that La Grande Dame rosé stakes out its individuality, via a historical plot of Pinot Noir called Clos Colin in the village of Bouzy on the southern slopes of the Montagne de Reims. ‘It belonged to Madame Clicquot’s husband,’ says Mariotti.
The house has undertaken an in-depth analysis into the soils, microclimate, vine material and ripening of this 1.3 hectare plot, which has belonged to the house since 1741.
The topsoil is much deeper here than in most of the village, and, without the water capacity of chalk to tap into, the vines experience some hydric stress; ‘this is beneficial for red wine,’ says Mariotti.
As a native Burgundian, one senses Mariotti’s drive to understand and refine Champagne’s red wines for this rosé d’assemblage; understandable given that La Grande Dame always features a fairly high proportion of red wine, between 12%-14%, which is added to the same blend used for the white Grande Dame.
At a dedicated winery in Bouzy, Veuve Clicquot ferments the red wine from Clos Colin in stainless steel alone. ‘We are looking for fruit, and for colour…but not for tannin,’ says Mariotti, eschewing oak influence and anything too full-bodied.
The white iteration of 2015 La Grande Dame continues to make a case as one of the vintage’s top performers, highlighting both the rich fruit profile and what Mariotti calls the ‘sharpness’ of the year, without leaning too heavily on the angularity and unusual aromatics many have reported in this year of extreme drought and unusual ripening patterns.
La Grande Dame Rosé 2015 fits in the very same mould, and can be expected to open up in a similarly rewarding fashion to the white. This is a brace of fine releases that shows the best face of a year which may not have lit the fires of critical acclaim or market interest, but has turned out bold and structured Champagnes that will find their home on the table.
Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame 2015:
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