Veuve Clicquot: Producer profile

This 2008 is currently showing itself as a huge version of La Grande Dame, rushing forwards with verve and power. It's a generous wine and has great presence in the mouth, tasting like crushed seashells and pearls of confit citrus. Its tension and high acidity have brought it to a splendid place right now, but will also see it long into the future.

Veuve Cliqcuot’s Cave Privée programme of setting aside respectable allocations of every vintage release is courageous, not least because vintages that don’t age well will never surface. 1990 shows breathtaking endurance – a mesmerising golden sunset of vivid brushstrokes of mature complexity.

Subtle gold presages latent power, alchemy at work. Here we meet La Grande Dame at her most elegant, the wine’s architecture sturdy yet delicately ornate with almond and soft patisserie behind the citric and red berried fruit. Sixteen years on, the evolution is modest, even if the primary fruit has softened a little; the citric notes are less strident and the red fruits are now, albeit reluctantly, ceding to a subtle, gently savoury texture. Beautifully woven, it brings to mind a silky canopy stitched from the finest cloth, trademark power deftly integrated and etching a mysteriously delicate finish.

The last in the sequence of Grandes Dames with a healthy slug of Chardonnay (47% in 2006), this is the child of a capricious and somewhat tricky vintage, the summer marked by an early heatwave but then a rainy August. You may not think so when you taste, as this is a very confident and complex wine, well named indeed, as an inherent feminine charm starts to show its pedigree with a little age. Splashes of almond, quince and beeswax pay their compliments to the structure, discreet vinosity starting to intervene, marked by notes of gingerbread and verbena. Toasty notes and a generous finish give a nod to the warmer months of the season and the result, still engagingly primary, is nonetheless opulent indeed.

<p>Magnum, disgorged June 2001</p> <p>A liquid lesson in how some Champagnes do not simply evolve, but can totally transform themselves. This 1993 began with a far-too-dominant malolactic character with coarse, peppery fruit underneath; it lacked finesse, showed little class and within a year of release its malo character had intensified, becoming vulgar and buttery. Critics could be forgiven for writing it off, yet there was promise if given sufficient time and, sure enough, it now shows remarkable class. Produced by the recently retired, already legendary, Jacques Peters, this vintage is a blend of 35% Chardonnay, 62% Pinot Noir and 3% Pinot Meunier, with a dosage of 9g/l.</p>