De Venoge Princes Rosé Brut

De Venoge’s NV Cordon Bleu Brut Rosé blends 60% Pinot Noir with 20% Chardonnay and 20% Pinot Meunier, including a 7% portion of red wine. It is a nice salmon colored Rosé with delicate and elegant fruit on the fresh and almost floral bouquet. The wine is lithe, fresh, round and elegant on the palate and finishes pretty vinous. Aged for three years on the lees, it drinks very well as an aperitif and with red fruits. My sample is entirely based on the 2013 vintage and was disgorged earlier this year with 7.8 grams per liter of dosage. (Most likely by error, the date of disgorgement is not indicated on the back label.) Tasted November 2017.

Champagne de Venoge’s finest wines come along in carafe-shaped bottles that one might call kitsch, but I like them. They don’t fit in my fridge door, but my fridge is big and the Champagne’s good enough to deserve its own shelf and an upright position. The prestige cuvées Louis XV and Louis d’Or are remarkably elegant and vinous sparkling wines with structure, great complexity and also finesse. The 2006 Brut Rosé is one of the finest you can get, and the 1995 Louis XV is a greatly matured and generous Champagne that is still terribly fresh even though it was disgorged more than ten years ago in 2006. Cellar master Isabelle Tellier is doing a great job; there is not a single disappointing wine in the current portfolio that starts with the easy-drinking Cordon Bleu and offers some sophisticated cuvées in the Princes range. Champage de Venoge is—despite its glorious but volatile history (in terms of frequent changes of ownership)—still an underrated rising star in the Champagne region. Champagne de Venoge is now owned by Lanson-BCC.” – Wine Advocate – 89pts