2004 Bollinger R.D. Magnum, Champagne

34% chardonnay, 66% pinot; 88% grand crus, 12% premier crus; fermented entirely in oak barrels; the 25th R.D. since 1952; aged 13 years on lees; 3g/L dosage; less than 1% of production

In the mid-1960s, journalists asked Madame Bollinger when she would release a prestige cuvée. She told them, ‘Never, because all of my wines are prestige – but I will show you how well my wines age!’ She had 1952 and 1953 disgorged in 1967, hence recently disgorged (‘Récemment Dégorgé’) – and R.D. was born. Confusingly, it’s not necessarily ‘recently disgorged’ today, but a vintage of La Grande Année aged longer on its lees and with lower dosage. Each vintage of La Grande Année is sold over 2–3 years, and at the end of this time it is assessed for its potential be kept as an R.D. release. If it then doesn’t look right when the time for release comes around, it is repurposed as reserves. Depending upon where you catch R.D. in its release cycle, it may be blessed with but a few more years on lees than LGA, which makes double the price difficult to swallow. My advice is always to buy the top vintages of LGA like 2008 and cellar them carefully yourself. The house has recognised this dilemma and is working to hold R.D. longer on lees. The aspiration is to increase Special Cuvée to 3.5 years on lees, maintain La Grande Année at 7 years and extend R.D. to 14 years. This necessitates holding stock back, and with the bold (and correct) decision not to release R.D. 2005, there will be no R.D. released in 2019 or 2020. A larger than usual proportion of the eternally enduring and spectacular 2008 has been held back for release as R.D. Released only a few months after it is disgorged, the house recommends drinking R.D. in the year after disgorgement.

September was warm and sunny in Champagne in 2004, and Bollinger waited until the end of the month to achieve more ripeness than many, making this vintage a powerful release for the house. I liked it in La Grande Année guise five years ago, and I like it even more in its encore as R.D. The freshest bottles still uphold a brilliant straw hue, while others have evolved to full, golden yellow. This is a deeply spicy and generous Bollinger, celebrating the personality of ripe pinot noir in rich white peach and grilled pineapple notes, set to an undercurrent that swirls and tosses with pipe smoke, truffles, dried peach, wild honey and Bollinger’s signature notes of ginger, crystalline orange, dark chocolate, crème brûlée and fruit mince spice. For such a maelstrom, it preserves profound freshness and preserved lemon vitality, with a long finish of bright energy and salty chalk mineral tension, heightened to a dizzying, airy stratosphere more vibrant in bottles tasted in Champagne than in Australia. The best capture the dynamic endurance of this great season, and transcend the magnitude of Bollinger with astonishing endurance and coiled tension. None more so than in magnum, with an astonishingly unique personality of its own, a fragrant air of white lilies, lemon, struck-flint reduction and wonderful crunchy white peaches and pears. A stunning R.D. with an airiness and luminosity transposed on the reverberating depth of Bollinger, echoing on a finish that hovers in motionless silence for minutes.