Since 2008, Veuve Clicquot has increased the Pinot Noir in this blend to 90% Pinot Noir and 10% Chardonnay. The 2015 Champagne La Grande Dame is a bright silver/yellow hue and is fresh and ripe on the nose, with lovely purity. Medium to full-bodied, it has a refined and rounded mousse, wonderful length, and purity with a lot of freshness. Don’t sleep on these wines. Drink over the next 15-20 years. 6 grams per liter dosage. (AF)

It had been two and a half years since I last opened a bottle of the 2015 Grande Dame and curiosity got the best of me over the holidays, though I had vowed I was going to give the wine fully ten years in the cellar before popping another bottle! This wine was disgorged October of 2021, finished with a dosage of six grams per liter and crafted from a cépages of ninety percent pinot noir and ten percent chardonnay. The wine today delivers lovely complexity in its aromatic constellation of white peach, apple, bread dough, chalky minerality, dried flowers, caraway seed and a discreetly smoky topnote. On the palate the wine is deep, brisk and full-bodied, with a superb core of fruit, great mineral undertow and grip, elegant mousse, a serious spine of acidity and great balance on the long, complex and still youthfully snappy finish.

The 2015 La Grande Dame is superb. Bright and vibrant in the glass, it impresses with its energy and focus. The 2015 packs a lot of intensity in its medium-bodied frame. Tasted after the 2012, the 2015 has a bit less body in the mid-palate but more explosive energy leading into the finish. Pear, white flowers, crushed rocks and slate lend tons of character. The 2015 points to the more modern style of Grande Dame today, now that the Pinots are increasingly sourced from cooler, north-facing sites. (AG)