Bollinger ‘La Grande Annee’ Champagne Rose 2005

Description

The Bollinger champagne House has created prestigious champagnes with character, distinguished by their elegance and complexity, since 1829. These outstanding wines are the result of rigorous attention to detail, for Bollinger accepts nothing less than excellence. Each and every detail represents a quest for a certain form of perfection. This uncompromisingly independent spirit, dedicated to ostentatious achievement, exemplifies the inimitable elegance for which the Champagne region is renowned and which has so impressed the Court of England that the House has been awarded the Royal Warrant since 1884.

The House’s 178 hectares are planted with 85% of Grand Cru and Premier Cru vines, spread over seven main vineyards: Aÿ, Avenay, Tauxieres, Louvois and Verzenay are planted with Pinot Noir, Cuis with Chardonnay and Champvoisy with Pinot Meunier. Bollinger is one of a very few champagne Houses to produce the majority of their own grapes for their blends.

Pinot Noir represents 60% of the House’s vineyard, corresponding to the exact proportion of this demanding grape variety in the Special Cuvee blend. Complex and powerful, it provides Bollinger wines with their remarkable structure. Another of Bollinger’s distinctive features are two plots, the Clos Saint-Jacques and Chaudes Terres, which have never succumbed to phylloxera, the disease which ravaged almost all of the champagne wine-growing area in the early 20th century. These ungrafted vines are entirely tended by hand and reproduced using a form of layering called provignage, thereby providing the means to preserve this extraordinary heritage from which the very exclusive ‘Vieilles Vignes Francaises’ cuvee is produced.

Since 2011, Maison Bollinger is certified High Environmental Value (HEV) corresponds to the highest level of a more general scheme of environmental certification for farms & vineyards. The environmental certification is a voluntary approach which aims to identify and promote particularly environmentally-friendly practices applied by growers. HEV covers four key areas: biodiversity conservation, plant protection strategy, management of fertiliser use and management of water.