2006 Pol Roger Vintage Brut

The 2006 Brut Vintage is a dense, powerful wine that is going to need time to fully unwind. A host of apricot pit, chamomile, orange blossom and smoke notes fill out the wine's ample frame effortlessly, but it is the wine's pure weight that stands out most at this stage. The ripeness of the year comes through as the wine continues to flesh out in the glass, but the 2006 is best cellared for at least a few years.

Sourced in 20 Premier and Grand Crus of the Côte de Blancs and the Montagne de Reims, the 2006 Vintage Brut is a cuvée of 60% Pinot Noir and 40% Chardonnay that was aged for nine years in the 33 meters deep cellar in Epernay. The deep golden-colored wine offers a deep and vinous, very clear and elegant nose of sweet cherries, stewed and baked apples, ripe stone fruits, cinnamon, chalk, brioche, sweet paprika, orangeade and dashes of lemon juice. Full-bodied, rich and round on the palate, this is a creamy textured though pure and highly elegant, firmly structured, powerful and persistent Champagne; it has a noble and rested expression, as well as a long, noble finish. This is midnight Champagne for noble jazz clubs with fine piano music, or to be matched with noble cigars.