Veuve Clicquot Brut Yellow Label 9L Salmanazar, Reims, Champagne

Grapes from 50 to 60 different crus, or growing areas, are used to produce the Veuve Clicquot Brut Yellow Label: 50-55% Pinot Noir ensures the structure so typical of the House wines. 15 to 20% Pinot Meunier rounds out the blend. 28% to 33% Chardonnay provides the elegance and sophistication essential to a perfectly balanced wine. A high proportion of priceless reserve wines (between 25% and 40%) ensures the continuity of the House style.

What has defined the wines of Veuve Clicquot since 1772 is not a recipe that is repeated year after year, but a complex alchemy which requires many different ingredients: the vagaries of the weather and the fruit of the harvest, the diversity of Champagne parcels, grape varieties and most importantly, the effect of time.

It takes Demarville and his team four months of daily tastings to make Yellow Label, tasting 2000 different wines and selecting 400–500 to make up the final blend. Their expertise is reflected in a gentle trajectory of refinement over recent years. Pinot noir leads out confidently with red apple, red cherry and mixed spice, over a toasty and bready backdrop of bottle-derived complexity, finishing with subtle phenolic grip and good persistence. Lively acid line and wellintegrated dosage make for a well-assembled, accurate and appealing apéritif.

Tyson Stelzer tysonstelzer.com