I brought the bottle to the fabulous @garumlondon for my birthday with a small group of industry and non-industry friends in November last year as corkage. It was a total showstopper of a wine! Everyone at the table agreed it was the best Champagne that anyone had experienced thus far - perfectly balanced in freshness and development, even after 35 years!

Paired with a variety of Garum's delicious Roman classic antipasti, which we all shared as a table, it was the best start to a meal that I could have hoped for.

On the nose, the wine was incredibly sensual. Truffle, baked orchard fruits, ripe figs and prunes, mixed together with a gorgeously rich toasty character and a subtle zesty backbone.

On the palate, a whole other world of deliciousness... Mocha, hazelnuts, dried tobacco, cinnamon... Apple crumble, baked peaches, pickled sultanas... All accompanied by a slight eucalyptus herbaceousness, followed by an incredibly long, chalky minerality.

It's safe to say we were all grinning ear-to-ear the entire way through this bottle... What a stunning discovery! Champagne really can age beautifully 🤯

The Vintage Year:

1988 - even with heavy August downpours, we did eventually see this vintage as a rather excellent one, albeit with reduced yields in order to avoid rotting/damaged grapes. Luckily, this was preceeded with a warm spring and a rather hot June, providing a highly successful budbirst and flowing - a strong foundation for such a vintage.

The end result of many of the wines from the '88 harvest was a heady, rich, and rather fresh, well-structured fizz with fantastic ageing potential. It was reported that many of the wines were performing harshly at first, with younger wines feeling unbalanced and rough - however, time seems to have tamed many of these factors into some very special bottles indeed...

With my limited experience of this vintage, alongside others' reports, it would be wise not to age them too much longer - find a reason to drink these beauties soon!