Gaston Chiquet 2015 "Special Club" Brut

The Wine

A blend of 68% Chardonnat and 32% Pinot Noir, both from premier cru vineyards. The wine saw no oak but its mouth-watering acidity was softened through malolactic fermentation and also by over 7 years on the lees before being discorged in January of 2023. This might just be the wine that defies the conventional wisdom that says Champagnes from the 2015 vintage won't age over the long term. Should drink well over the next ten years, at least. 

Tasting Notes: The wine is elegant with ample aromatics of citrus peel, white flowers, and apples in honey. Floral and mineral notes hang on to the end of the wine's long finish. The modest dosage of 6g/L puts this wine at the top amount allowable in the "Extra Brut" category of Champagne.

Special Club Wines: Years ago, the grower-producers in Champagne faced a marketing problem created by the inconcsistency of quality between producers. While the term "Grower-Producer" caught on during the 1990s (followed soon thereafter by the term "Farmer Fizz"), the truth was that not all such wines were better than those of the big Champagne houses.

So a group of the region's top producers formed a group of elite producers (you have to be invited to join, and after that your membership is dependent upon a judgement of your wine in a blind tasting.  Every year the group’s members submit their best wine this nerve-wracking blind tasting by their peers. If judged to be of the highest caliber, the wine is awarded “Special Club” staus and allowed to be marketed as such.

You can easily identify a Special Club wine, as they are required to be bottled in a unique, wide-based bottle that was custom-designed for the Special Club (this is a requirement) and then labeled under the producer’s label with the term "Special Club" on it.