Veuve Clicquot has fired the starting gun on grande marque prestige releases from Champagne’s much-discussed 2015 vintage with the latest iteration of its recently-refined hommage to Pinot Noir.
‘There was no frost, no disease – the vintage was easy to handle’, chef de cave Didier Mariotti explained at the London launch, which also saw a preview of the 2012 La Grande Dame Rosé.
The ‘solar’ character of the 2015 vintage, together with some pronounced drought conditions, conjured up unusual ripening patterns that have made the vintage a hot topic in the cellars of Reims and Épernay. ‘It’s a good vintage for understanding what’s happening right now with global warming,’ says Mariotti.
