Winemaker Notes
Blend: 80% Chardonnay, 20% Pinot Noir
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Mostly Chardonnay (80%), the 2019 Champagne 1er Cru Grand Cellier D'Or Brut is a bright yellow hue and is really starting to show off, revealing nuance, finesse, and opulence. Its notes of star fruit, pastry cream, croissants, fresh baked bread, and poached apples are followed by a full-bodied wine that retains its lovely focus and purity on the palate, with a refined mousse that rounds out the wine, and it offers a wonderful texture of citrus oils and salty earth. It’s a lovely wine all the way through and is going to age gracefully over the coming two decades.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Crafted from 50-year-old vines facing south, Vilmart's 2019 Brut Premier Cru Grand Cellier d'Or evokes aromas of pear, white peach, spring flowers, spices, lemon oil and menthol. Medium to full-bodied, pure and crystalline, it has a fleshy core of fruit, bright acids and a seamless texture enhanced by delicate notes of nuts and acacia, concluding with a long, saline finish. This is a great effort that could age gracefully over the next 20 years.
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Vinous
The 2019 Grand Cellier d'Or emerges from the Blanches Voies lieu-dit and is aged in French oak barrels. Creamy and ample, the 2019 is wonderfully sensual from start to finish. The warm vintage has given the Grand Cellier d'Or lovely textural suaveness, but without any excessive exuberance. Lemon confit, dried flowers, mint and marzipan build nicely in the glass. This is beautifully done.
Representing the topmost expression of a Champagne house, a vintage Champagne is one made from the produce of a single, superior harvest year. Vintage Champagnes account for a mere 5% of total Champagne production and are produced about three times in a decade. Champagne is typically made as a blend of multiple years in order to preserve the house style; these will have non-vintage, or simply, NV on the label. The term, "vintage," as it applies to all wine, simply means a single harvest year.
Associated with luxury, celebration, and romance, the region, Champagne, is home to the world’s most prized sparkling wine. In order to bear the label, ‘Champagne’, a sparkling wine must originate from this northeastern region of France—called Champagne—and adhere to strict quality standards. Made up of the three towns Reims, Épernay, and Aÿ, it was here that the traditional method of sparkling wine production was both invented and perfected, birthing a winemaking technique as well as a flavor profile that is now emulated worldwide.
Well-drained, limestone and chalky soil defines much of the region, which lend a mineral component to its wines. Champagne’s cold, continental climate promotes ample acidity in its grapes but weather differences from year to year can create significant variation between vintages. While vintage Champagnes are produced in exceptional years, non-vintage cuvées are produced annually from a blend of several years in order to produce Champagnes that maintain a consistent house style.
With nearly negligible exceptions, . These can be blended together or bottled as individual varietal Champagnes, depending on the final style of wine desired. Chardonnay, the only white variety, contributes freshness, elegance, lively acidity and notes of citrus, orchard fruit and white flowers. Pinot Noir and its relative Pinot Meunier, provide the backbone to many blends, adding structure, body and supple red fruit flavors. Wines with a large proportion of Pinot Meunier will be ready to drink earlier, while Pinot Noir contributes to longevity. Whether it is white or rosé, most Champagne is made from a blend of red and white grapes—and uniquely, rosé is often produce by blending together red and white wine. A Champagne made exclusively from Chardonnay will be labeled as ‘blanc de blancs,’ while ones comprised of only red grapes are called ‘blanc de noirs.’