1996 Jacques Selosse, Vintage, Champagne, France

A monster Champagne…pure heaven. If you like extreme youthful acidity, mineral overload and gigantic concentration – this is it…well for me it is. Nose – insanely tight – the breeze of a cornfield on a hot summer day mixed with a little doze of anis, mint, flowers, toast, and citrus with dark bread crumbs. Taste is gigantic – and the touch from glass to mouth is instant potential feeling. Every spot on the palate gets a doze. Its murder to drink it now and with proper cellaring it will last 100 years. (98-100)

(Tasted May-2006)

1996 Jacques Selosse, Vintage, Champagne, France

Three early concerns surrounded this Champagne. First the neck filling was 0.5cm lower than normal and secondly the cork had a wet cellar smell on the sides but nothing on the bottom. Furthermore the cork was far more “pressed” and thinner than normal for such young Champagne. BUT – I tell you there was nothing wrong with the quality – WOW. I have tasted this Champagne once before and looking at my previous TN I am getting more confident that this bottle might have seem a tiny bit of excessive bottle evolvement, as the level of minerals and acidity was far more expressive in my previous bottle. There is only one way to know for sure – and that it to taste it again someday. Back to the monster – again a pleasure to witness perhaps the best Champagne producer of them all presenting something that is so concentrated, but yet so elegant at the same time. The nose is HUGE – opening new layers for each nose dive, with deep fruits, caramel, hazelnuts, corn, butter, flowers and roasted dark bread. The taste is outrageous and an explosion of utterly dive mousse being pressed with rocket power toward the upper palate and touching every single spot in the mouth. I can’t tell you why I didn’t score it 100pts – it had everything, maybe it’s too unreal, but I certainly look forward to taste it again and will happily give it the perfect score some day. (99)

Tasted Feb-2007