- Colour Champagne_Sparkling
- Producer Charles Heidsieck
- Region Champagne
- Grape Chardonnay / Pinot Noir
- Drinking 2022 - 2030
- Case size 3x75cl
- Available Now
NV - Champagne Heidsieck Cuvée Champagne Charlie - 3x75cl
- Colour Champagne Sparkling
- Producer Charles Heidsieck
- Region Champagne
- Grape Chardonnay / Pinot Noir
- Drinking 2022 - 2030
- Case size 3x75cl
- Available Now
Select pricing type
Need help? Call +44 (0)20 7793 7900 or email wine@goedhuiswaddesdon.com.
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Essi Avellan MW, June 2022
Based on the 2016 vintage, this wine builds on its magnificent wealth of reserve wines. There is already high expression upon release, a super complex nose with vanilla, burned sugar, caramel and liquorice meeting tangerine, pineapple, dried apricots and honey. The sumptuously sweet character continues on the soothingly mellow palate oozing reserve wine richness. Here, the 52% Chardonnay and 48% Pinot Noir going back down to 1998 blend harmoniously into something luxuriously textured. Perfectly balanced with its 7g/l dosage.
Region
Champagne
Champagne, the world's greatest sparkling wine, needs little introduction - with imitations produced in virtually every country capable of growing grapes, including such unlikely candidates as India and China. The Champagne region, to the north of Paris, has the most northerly vineyards in France, with vines grown on slopes with a southerly exposure to maximise sunlight. The soil is chalky, providing an excellent balance of drainage and water retention. The key to the wine is in the cellar - the bubbles result from a second fermentation in the bottle and the rich toasty flavours in great Champagne come from extended bottle ageing on the yeasty lees. Until the eighteenth century, the wines produced in the Champagne area were light acidic white wines, with no hint of sparkle. However glass and closure technology developed at that time and it was not long before Dom Perignon, a Benedictine monk at the Abbey of Hautvilliers, started experimenting with blends and produced the first recognisable champagne. In a world accustomed to still wines, the advent of champagne was almost a flop. It was saved when it became fashionable at the French court as a result of Louis XV's mistress Madame de Pompadour commenting "Champagne is the only wine that lets a woman remain beautiful after she has drunk it." And the rest is history, with famous (or infamous) champagne lovers including Casanova, Dumas, Wagner, Winston Churchill, James Bond and Coco Chanel.