2015 Champagne Bollinger La Grande Année Rosé

Pouring a bright but pale pink color, the 2015 Champagne La Grande Annee Brut Rosé is a very pretty vintage on the nose, with notes of raspberries and blood orange. Ripe and juicy but with a bitter citrus flavor, it has a hint of cinnamon spice and lifts with notes of ripe strawberries and raspberries, along with a fruity mousse and a clean finish. It’s juicy and inviting yet has the underlying structure and tension of a refined and rounded mousse, with a mouthful of playful juiciness. The dosage is 6 grams per liter. Drink over the coming 15-20 years, but wow, it's drinking great now.

Base wine, the same as the white Grande Année 2015 tinted by 5% still red wine from the famous Côte aux Enfants vineyard, was all aged in oak. Blend of 11 crus, predominantly 62% Pinot Noir from Verzenay, Aÿ and Mareuil-sur-Aÿ and 38% Chardonnay from Chouilly and Avize. Disgorged July 2023. Pale, slightly gris salmon pink (a little paler than the Billecart 2012 Elisabeth Salmon rosé tasted alongside). Heady, mushroomy, off-dry, sumptuous Bollinger gloriousness on the palate. I wonder what the dosage is, and whether the richness comes mainly from the fruit and oak? Finishes dry, but with wonderfully soothing impact on the palate. Relatively gentle mousse. Really gets to the deepest part of the throat. Sensational!

Bollinger's 2015 Brut La Grande Année Rosé was disgorged in May last year with seven grams per liter dosage. Offering up deep aromas of orchard fruits, blood orange, mandarin rind and peach mingled with nuances of coffee, praline and fino sherry, it's medium to full-bodied, pillowy and layered, with a broad attack that segues into a vinous palate framed by high levels of structuring dry extract that makes its presence felt on the sapid, nutty and penetrating finish. Given the skin maturity and inherent structure of the year, the Bollinger team elected to include only 4.5% of still red wine in the blend, a comparatively low percentage.