Bollinger La Grande Annee 2015 in wooden box

2015 is approached with a certain amount of scepticism, but La Grande Annee 2015 is a phantastic champagne. Especially after a few hours in the air, it is clear that we have a classic great Bollinger Vintage in our glass. After the pleasing, stylish 2014 vintage comes an extremely concentrated, full-bodied La Grande Annee 2015, reminiscent of the young 1976 Bollinger Vintage.  The Chardonnays from cool sites such as Grauves provide good acidity. The palate is not diffuse and soft, but supported by a salty, tingling minerality that offers precision and freshness as important counterpoints to the power.
The proportion of Chardonnay is slightly higher at 40% and there is a high proportion of wines from Avize and Vezernay. Once again, newer oak barrels were used for micro-oxidation than was customary a few years previously. This gives La Grande Annee 2015 a very subtle but delicious oaky flavour. Aromatically, it is reminiscent of yellow fruits and red apples, hazelnut, leather, nougat and tobacco.

Richard Juhlin champagneclub.com 93(95). 2015 is generally a problematic vintage with heat stress and a period of drought. It is no art to get richness and power in the wines, but elegance and freshness are rare. Because Bollinger's house style is inherently so masculinely powerful, Bollinger's eminent team focused on preserving freshness first and foremost. According to Denis Bunner, Bollinger felt that the grapes they had access to gave more typicity and greater elegance to the Chardonnay this time. Hence a slightly higher content of the green grape than in the original recipe. Perhaps even more important was the choice of Avize and Verzenay as engines. Verzenay behaves in many ways like Chardonnay with its chalky elegance and great purity. This time the shares of Aÿ and Verzenay were equal for once. Fat Cramant and Oger were now downplayed and Avize was primarily supported by tight Chouilly. An interesting detail that reduces tannin, clumsiness and contributes to an increased sense of freshness is, oddly enough, oak barrels. This is due to its great age and the company's strict selection of the best casks that only provide micro oxidation. The color is already deep golden with a fine stream of tiny bubbles fighting their way up through the glycerol-rich concentrated wine. Intense and rich and at the same time nuanced and complex. The small concentrated grapes ultimately produced an ultimate gastronomic masterpiece. The scent cannonade is classic Bollinger, but fresh and more nuanced than I expected from the vintage. Stone fruits, honeysuckle, honey, plum marmalade, Cox Orange, raspberry, almond, hazelnut, leather, tanned skin, cigar, and duck liver are all clear instruments in the orchestra playing their richly generous vintage anthem. The freshness does not come from acidity this time, but from lack of water and concentrated extracts in a similar way as the even more extreme 2003. In the finish I find tobacco, forest aromas and chocolate with sea salt, a delicious combination. Precisely the saltiness and the slightly higher tannin content contribute to making this a perfect partner for poultry in all its forms.