Score: 89/100
The Philipponnat Champagne house is located in the heart of the Top Pinot Noir-oriented Montagne de Reims area of the French Champagne region.
The ‘Grand Blanc’ cuvée, blended exclusively from Chardonnay grapes, therefore comes through as a bit of an exception in Philipponnat’s range of wines.
Yet, the grapes are sourced from some of the best sites for Chardonnay in the whole of Champagne namely from the Côte des Blancs, Montagne de Reims, and Clos des Goisses, exclusively Premier and Grand Cru plots.
This a vintage cuvée, therefore from grapes of a single year. The wine went through partial malolactic fermentation in vats and vinification without malolactic fermentation for the wines in wooden barrels.
Dosage is one of an «Extra-brut » (4.25 g/litre) to preserve its original purity of the sparkling wine’s expression.
It’s gone through a rather long aging of five to seven years to develop complexity and secondary and tertiary aromas from aging on lees.
This bottle of 2007 vintage Champagne (Millésime 2007) I tasted was bottled in July 2008, and disgorged in January 2015.
So how good is this 2007 Philipponnat Grand Blanc ?
The Answer is in the Tasting Notes:
This Champagne sparkling wine comes in a delicate medium-intensity lemon yellow color.
The nose displays flinty and mineral notes mainly. Quite closed up in all honesty. Maybe the bottle wasn’t 100%?
Some roasted nuts (hazelnuts), a little lemon and doughy characters.
The wine reveals its character much more on the palate. Great acidity just balanced by the right amount of sugar to leave it on the ‘extra-brut’ side of the Brut category. It’s savory more much more than sweet.
Plenty of bursting flavors of nuts and dough fill your senses. They’re accompanied by vanilla and some confit lemon.
Fine bubbles, good tension carried over by the solid acidity.
Please let me know your thoughts