Gosset Grand Milllesime, a premier vintage Champagne

2006 Gosset Grand Millesime Brut Champagne

Lemon-gold in the glass with tiny bubbles and gently creamy mousse, this recently released vintage Champagne offers a fruit-centric nose of poached yellow apple, violets, cinnamon, toasted bread, sweet cream and pear. The palate is lightly creamy in weight and texture but mouthwatering. There’s just a kiss of harmonizing sweetness. The flavors of baked golden apple, fresh pear, lemon, pie spice and moist bread are long-lasting.

This is a “middle-of-the-road” Champagne in that it’s fresh but doesn’t require food, and flavorful but won’t overwhelm light courses. The wine should build complexity over the next 10 years. If you drink it now, try it for breakfast with creamy scrambled eggs or, at dinner, with baked monkfish under a light vanilla-butter sauce.

Rating: 93
Drink: now through 2026
Closure: Cork
Retail Price: $90

Gosset is the oldest of all current Champagne producers, established in 1584. It’s known for its fresh, Pinot Noir-centric wines made from Marne Valley fruit. To help maintain freshness, Gosset avoids malolactic fermentation in their base wines.

2006 was a good year for Pinot Noir. It produced plenty of nicely ripe fruit with gentle acidity. The legal requirement in Champagne for aging vintage wine on the lees in bottle is three years. The 2006 Gosset Grand Millesime goes above and beyond with aging of at eight years or more.

Did you know? — A vintage Champagne must be 100% from the stated vintage, but producers are prohibited from using up more than 80% of their total yield from any one vintage. That ensures there’s plenty of wine to make good multi-vintage wines in future years.

Details

Blend: 56% Pinot Noir, 44% Chardonnay
Origin: (Chardonnay) Avize, Cramant, Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, Trépail, Vertus; (Pinot Noir) Ambonnay, Avenay, Aÿ-Champagne, Chignyles-Roses, Louvois
Fermentation: No malolactic conversion
Aging: at least 8 years in bottle prior to disgorging
Dosage: 6 g/L
Alcohol: 12.0%

Service Recommendations

Decanting: Um… no!
Temperature: 50°–54° F
Food pairing: Creamy scrambled eggs, monkfish with vanilla-butter sauce

Text copyright Fred Swan 2016. All rights reserved.