Our expert tastes Lanson Noble back to 1979 and finds out why these Champagnes age so well

A glass fills with pale gold, capped with a meringue-soft mousse which subsides, slowly, to a simmering ring around the glass.

There’s little remarkable about the pour until a glance sideways reveals a number etched on the side of the bottle: 1979.

Sensing my astonishment, Lanson Chef de Cave Hervé Dantan raises a knowing smile. ‘The 1979 has always been like this!,’ he says. ‘From the first time I tasted it.’

Intense aromas soar up from the glass – cooked limes, coffee, kerosine, toasted nut and vanilla – it’s still gliding on a gently bubbly texture while serving up intense, complex refreshment.

Despite the fortune to taste older Champagnes on a regular basis, disappointments at the hands of overt oxidation, bad corks or careless storage are commonplace.

How come Lanson’s treasures seem to last so well?

Turning out the cellar

First in the list of reasons is a renovation of the house’s library that has proven itself a model for the region.

‘It took four years to do the restoration of all the wines going back to 1904,’ explains Dantan, who had two people working constantly on a highly technical project which included laser-tasting bottles for pressure (without opening them), colour and chemical analysis, cork analysis and, where needed, tasting.

‘We had to taste some 1914, some 1918 – it’s wasn’t torture, but we learnt so much about the potential of ageing these wines. It was an incredible process,’ he recalls.

Around 15% of the library was culled after all 200,000 bottles were individually checked.

The end result is that every bottle in the extensive library is now as close to guaranteed in condition as possible, tagged with its own ID card and, in the case of the Lanson Vintage Collection, available for collectors to purchase in their own personal private cellar space at the maison.

Unhurried development

While the vintage takes up most of the cellar, a separate archive exists for prestige cuvée Noble.

It was this precious store which was raided for an extraordinary ‘vertical’ tasting in April 2026, starting with the 1979 and proceeding through a series of both Noble Blanc de Blancs and Noble releases.

With the Chardonnay part of the blend put together first (and sometimes released as a standalone Noble Blanc de Blancs), 30% Pinot Noir from the Grand Cru village of Verzenay is added to complete the main cuvée, which spends around 12 years ageing in the cellars before release.

Even then, this is clearly not a wine in a hurry.

Four aged examples of Lanson Noble

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