2008 Drappier Grande Sendree
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Tasting notes
The 2008 Brut Grande Sendrée is showing superbly today, evoking aromas of ripe orchard fruits, brioche, marzipan, spices, confit citrus and beeswax intertwined with delicate notes of honey with air. Full-bodied on the palate, this Champagne is concentrated and perfectly balanced, rich and textured with an elegant mousse and frame of bright acids. It has a delicately phenolic, singular mid-palate and concludes with a long, chalky finish. This blend of 55% Pinot Noir and 45% Chardonnay, sourced from a single parcel in Urville, was matured for seven years sur lattes and disgorged with a dosage of five grams per liter.
Critic scores
Jancis Robinson MW
Jancis Robinson MW
More reviews and scores
Aged three years under the sea in the Bay of St-Malo after disgorgement in June 2014. 45% Chardonnay, 55% Pinot Noir. They've been using this brown glass and narrow-necked bottle since 1980 because it better protects the wine from both light and oxidation. And the wine has been made from the same selected plots since 1974 – a 4.8 ha monopole from which they use about 70% of the crop – so named because a fire in Urville in 1836 left the vines covered in ash (cendres). Unfiltered. One of the few prestige cuvées to be organic, made from mass-selection vines and with low SO2. Dosage 4.5 g/l, using liqueur de tirage that has been aged in oak vats. Described by Michel Drappier as a great vintage. Same colour as – possibly slightly darker than – the same wine aged in the Drappier cellars. A little more smoky and reductive. Seems a little harsher, a little more aggressive in texture, too, even though Michel Drappier suggests the CO2 is better integrated in the wines aged under the sea. As it opens, more intense apricot and orange nose and baked apple. Just seems a little less elegant overall than the cellar-aged wine overall but still a lovely wine. (JH)
Single vineyard wine. Masses of autolysis on the nose. Really almost Marmite nose it's so yeasty! And then marked precision and acidity with chalky freshness on the finish. Not that much undertow but very distinctive and carefully made. Very lively. (JR)
Prestige cuvée of the house. Eponymous single vineyard. 55% Pinot Noir, 45% Chardonnay. Vinified 35% in foudres. Malo done. Bottled April 2009, disgorged September 2016 – seven years and five months on lees. Dosage 5.5 g/l (wood-aged dosage). Pale gold. Tight, introvert, putty nose. Lots to open out from here with a strong citrus streak. Real grip on the palate. Exciting wine but not quite ready. (JR)