Friday, 27 January 2012

Veuve Clicquot La Grand Dame

La Grand Dame is the prestige cuvee for Veuve Clicquot Champagne, and commemorates Madame Clicquot with the name her peers bestowed upon her as a mark of respect and recognition. First created in 1972 to mark the bicentenary of the Champagne house, it is only produced in exceptional vintages. That also holds for the Rose version so that in some years in which the white prestige cuvee is produced, no Grande Dame rose is made, eg 1996.

One Christmas, I was given a copy of a book in which the former Wall Street Journal wine coloumnist couple Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher expanded on a few of their writings. One of the chapters dealt with prestige cuvee champagnes. True to form they bought a number and blinded tasted them against each other. One of the 3 final choices in the white section was in fact this wine (same vintage), whcih did not eventually come first (that was the cuvee Winston Churchill, see Tuesday's entry), but they remarked about its femininity and how it was perfect for a summer wedding. Well, we didn't have that at a summer wedding, but as a prelude to a night of dry white Bordeaux wines. It was also a good choice for that!

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