2015 Veuve Clicquot la Grande Dame Paola Paronetto Edition

The 2015 Brut La Grande Dame is turning out well today, evoking aromas of spring blossom, spring flowers, lemon oil, spices and freshly baked bread. Medium to full-bodied, elegant and seamless, it has a deep core of fruit with a lively spine of acidity and a saline, mineral finish.

Disgorged October 2021. Tasted blind. Rich nose. Big bubbles. Loose and lacy and toffee-caramel sweetness. Big and round and almost a gentle giant, but there is plenty of power and structure packed into the acidity. Grapefruit and bitter apples. Then sweet, ripe apples. Caramel creamy. Cuboid structure and cuboid in the way it fills the mouth. Yet the finish is rounded and gentle, flashing with silver and gold threads. (TC)

The 2015 La Grande Dame is bright and nicely focused. There’s good energy driving a core of Pinot Noir fruit. Pear, white flowers, mint, white pepper and lime are nicely delineated. The 2015 is not the most complex Grande Dame I have ever tasted, but it offers plenty of immediacy with no vegetal notes or hard contours that have proven so challenging elsewhere. This is an expertly made Champagne by any measure. Dosage is 6 grams per liter. Disgorged: October, 2021.