Tasting Note No.24
....and so it begun. Celebrations to Christmas and the New Year. This sparkler is from a 30 hectares property near Reims. Winemaker Daniel Thibault has done a lot in recent years to lift the image of this Champagne house. Grapes selected from 50 different vineyards, mostly Pinot Noir and Meunier, the wine spent 2 years on lees.
Colour bright golden hay. Fresh nose of biscuits, toasty hazelnuts and ripe apples with fresh and vigorous bubbles. The palate is superbly balanced, lovely citrus fruit mixing with freshly baked bread, cracked yeast and toast. Excellent weight of fruit and complexity, this wine is fresh and exciting. Very good depth and a long dry finish. A Champagne I like and prefer to many other NV's. Definitely a drier style. My wife actually prefers the creaminess of the Moet but she agreed that the Piper had better length and finish. The Piper cost AU $55 which is fair as you'll get a good wine but Champagne is expensive no matter how you look at it.
I also drunk an other version of this red label, the 'airline cuvée' created by Thibault for high altitudes, on board a Lauda flight to Vienna earlier this year. That too was tasty but I prefer 'cuvée earth' available on the ground.
Tasted:December 2003