Laurent Perrier Champagne tasting at Wine Watch

"You have only so many bottles in your life, never drink a bad one."
Len Evans

It’s Champagne season with out big annual Champagne and Sparkling wine tasting coming up in just a few weeks on Saturday November 24th.  This is one of our biggest wine tastings of the year and we will have close to 100 different Champagnes and Sparkling wines on hand this evening.  This will be the first big tasting in the new store with everything now in place it will be a good opportunity to come down and check out the Wine Cave and Wine Bar as this event will be hosted in both locations.

We have had several warm-up Champagne tastings to get ready for this event but this will be the last.  On Saturday November 10th we will host Champagne Laurent Perrier in the store to get ready for the biggest bubbly event in South Florida!

Although we have a good selection of all the major champagne labels and one of my favorite statements to make about Champagne today is that "there is no BAD Champagne", there are a lot of great small producers’ wines now available in the U.S.  But some of our old favorites are still making outstanding bubbles like Laurent Perrier. 

Laurent Perrier Champagne tasting at Wine Watch
Saturday, November 10, 2018
7:30 PM

NV Laurent-Perrier "La Cuvée" Brut Champagne
Price: $43.50    Sale $38.28

"La Cuvée is the new, shiny, rebranded Brut NV, only just launched. In 2004 Laurent-Perrier got access to quite a large bit of good Chardonnay vineyards, and this set in motion a 13-year plan to adapt and 'enhance' the LP Brut. 55% Chardonnay, 35% Pinot Noir, 10% Pinot Meunier from 110 growers. Base vintage 2012 with 30% reserve wine. They've dropped the dosage from 12.5 g/l to 9 g/l, and the wine spends four years on the lees. Pale colour. Lemon shortbread nose, the tiniest hint of marzipan, verbena. Needle-fine mousse and intense, sharpened, lemon-sherbet acidity. Very pointed, with a bit of lemon-bon-bon sweetness on the finish. Razor-sharp finish. Elegant, angular, classic. (TC) (6/2017) Jancis Robinson"

Laurent-Perrier Brut Millesime Champagne 2007
Price: $64.50    Sale $56.76

Laurent-Perrier has chosen to make vintages very rarely, only selecting the very best years. This makes the Brut Millesime a rare and outstanding wine that clearly expresses the specific character of a year in the Laurent-Perrier style.

The year 2007 began with an unusually mild winter and was followed by a warm spring. The picking started early in late August with a generous harvest of grapes of great maturity and quality.

NV Laurent Perrier Rose Brut Champagne
Price: $75.00    Sale $66.00

The Cuvée Rosé from Laurent-Perrier is the most recognized rosé champagne in the world. It is also one of the few rosés still made by the saignée method. Held in an elegant bottle inspired by King Henri IV, it has been widely acknowledged for its consistent high quality for more that 40 years, and it is the benchmark for rosé champagne around the world.

Laurent-Perrier Cuvée Rosé is truly remarkable for its highly expressive bouquet, stemming from very careful preservation of fresh fruit aromas during the wine making. Made with 100% Pinot Noir from 10 different "crus " (or villages), from the North and South areas of the Montagne de Reims, as well as the famous Cote de Bouzy. Grapes from carefully selected plots are meticulously sorted and de-stemmed before going into the vats, and the controlled maceration helps with the color extraction and the development of the full aromatic richness of the Pinot Noir.

MV Laurent Perrier Grand Siecle Grand Cuvee Champagne Brut
Price: $127.50    Sale $112.20

Grand Siècle expresses the quintessence of champagne and French refinement

Launched in 1959, Grand Siècle is Laurent-Perrier’s Prestige Cuvée, the prime example of the House’s exacting standards and know-how. Its unique style combining finesse, power and balance is the outcome of blending the very best grapes from the most prestigious crus in wines from the best Laurent-Perrier vintage years.

2004 Laurent Perrier Cuvee Alexandra Rose Champagne
Price: $349.50    Sale $307.56

A bit of a flinty character, light red berry and apricot like fruit, only 22 bottles in the state of this vintage, a blend of: 80% Pinot Noir 20% Chardonnay and this is matured for 10 years 6 grams of dosage and this wine has a beautiful copper color created for the daughters’ wedding and a good amount of mineraltiy all grand cru vineyards and this wine has a good amount of minerality here and toasty biscuit flor quality to the finish long and layered orange peel candied with a long layered finish.  Finish 50+          KILLER

Menu

American Sturgeon caviar with bellinis and all the fixins

Salmon and Tuna Tartar Duo

Seared Scallop with citrus champagne beurre blanc

Butter Seared Veal Medallion with minted couscous

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

The fee for this tasting is $125 + tax, for reservations call 954-523-9463 or e-mail andy@winewatch.com

Large Format Bubbles:

NV Laurent-Perrier "La Cuvée" Brut Champagne Magnum 
Price: $84.00    Sale $73.92

NV Laurent Perrier Rose Brut Champagne Magnum
Price: $183.00    Sale $161.04

NV Laurent-Perrier "La Cuvée" Brut Champagne 3 Liter
Price: $337.50    Sale $297.00

A bit about Champagne Laurent Perrier:

A family of coopers founded this estate back in 1812.  They eventually became tired of seeing other growers’ wine in their casks and decided to move from their native town of Chigny-les-Roses on the Montagne de Reims to set up shop in the remains of an eleventh century abbey at Tours-sur-Marne.  This turned out to be an excellent move, when the echelle des crus system was put into place in 1919 (the system was delimitated in 1919 and imposed by 1944), all of the vineyards in this town were awarded grand and premier cru status.  It is this system that sets the standards for vineyards in Champagne and unlike the vineyard classification system in Burgundy and Bordeaux vineyards are reclassified, up graded and given new status on a regular basis. 

Eugene Laurent inherited the firm from his parents and ran it until his death in 1887.  At that time Mathilde Emile Perrier, Eugene’s widow took over the firm and changed its name to Veuve Laurent Perrier.  When she passed away without heirs in 1925 the firm went up for sale.  Ironically, another widow, Marie-Louise de Nonancourt (the sister of Victor and Henri Lanson) purchased the marque in 1938.  Women have played an important role in the history of the champagne industry, a wine which we might term essentially feminine.  This was confirmed by the Marquise de Pompadour, with her intelligent sensitivity to things of this nature.  Some other illustrious widows; Bollinger, Pommery, Harriot and Heidsieck.  The house of Laurent Perrier never really saw its true potential until after the World War II, when Bernard de Nonancourt (the son of Marie Louise) took the firm over.  At that time Laurent-Perrier was ranked a mere ninety-eighth amongst the Champagne houses.  Bernard undertook a major renovation of the firm and brought its vineyards back to their former state of excellence.

The house owns vineyards in Avise, Bouzy, Cramant, & Louvois (a tiny growing region).  The wines from Bouzy add great weight and extraction and richness of flavor.  This powerful Pinot bouquet is heightened by high alcohol content.  There is something spectacular about the chardonnay from Cramant, a certain perfumed characteristic indigenous in the grapes grown here they are one of the purest expressions of this grape in all of Champagne.  Creamy and rich, laden with fruit, this is terroir supreme

The estate now produces around 583,000 cases annually; they have one of the top Non-Vintage Brut Roses in the business.  Laurent Perrier’s Tete du Cuvee blend is Grand Siecle (the great century), this cuvee is in the same league as the great Champagne houses marque wines like Louis Roederer’s Crystal and Perrier Jouet’s Belle Epoche.  The firms’ prestige cuvee Rose is the Cuvee Grand Siecle Alexandra Rose.  This wine offers delightfully scented citrus, vanilla, smoke with notes of beaked bread.  This firm belongs in the company of all these fine producers. 

In the 17th Century, during the reign of Louis XIV, France enjoyed its most illustrious era. Louis XIV became known as the "Sun King" for his benevolence and his patronage of the Arts, which became the foundation of France's rich artistic heritage. At the Palace of Versailles Louis XIV was the first French King to drink Champagne.  Louis XIV's era became known as the Grand Siècle - the "Great Century". Bottled in a replica of a 17th Century bottle evoking the radiance of that period, Laurent-Perrier's prestige cuvées embody luxury, magnificence and elegance fit for a king.

When it came to his prestige cuvée, Bernard de Nonancourt decided to highlight two of Champagne's traditional realms of proficiency: the blending of different crus and different vintages. Grand Siècle "La Cuvée" is the epitome of Champagne cuvées, as it blends complementary wines from Laurent-Perrier's very best growths and most successful vintage years.  Grand Siècle is made with a pinot noir and chardonnay blend, with the latter being slightly dominant. Twelve of the most prestigious villages supply these grapes; all of them classified at 100% Grands Crus such as Ambonnay, Verzenay, Mailly, Avize, Cramant, Chouilly and Le Mesnil-sur-Oger. Within the vineyards of these villages, only the very best plots are selected, as are the finest musts from the pressings. The blended wine is then aged during the second fermentation on the yeast for approximately five years.

It has a bright color, with a brilliant yellow hue. Its subtle aromas of honey, hazelnuts, grilled almonds and brioche, make this the perfect companion for refined dishes. It pairs just as well with poultry and truffles as it does with veal and morel mushrooms.