Is this Champagne still good?

[Shannon_Elise]

I got this bottle in the topic decription a few years ago as a gift. Don't ask me why I havn't drank it until now, its a long story. My question is, is it still good? I wanted to open it on New Year's Eve, but don't want to if it is going to be bad. Thanks!

Shannon

[cdh]

Depends totally on how you stored it. If it has been on top of your fridge for 10 years, don't hold out much hope. If it has been in the basement, you're likely just fine. You want to minimize temperature changes and agitation.

In theory, that 96 is capable of being delicious today and for years to come.

[JohnL]

I got this bottle in the topic decription a few years ago as a gift. Don't ask me why I havn't drank it until now, its a long story. My question is, is it still good? I wanted to open it on New Year's Eve, but don't want to if it is going to be bad. Thanks!

Shannon

←

If stored well this is a wonderful wine!

I had this last new year's eve and it was drinking beautifully though it will age and improve for at least ten more years or so.

96 was a fine vintage for champagne and the Bollinger was a brilliant example with loads of flavor and bracing acidity.

[Busboy]

When I get an old bottle like this I buy a backup just in case (and then drink both ), though a good vintage champagne like Bollinger should, as Christopher said, hold up for many years.

Do be aware, though, that older vintages tend to be -- to vastly oversimplify -- a little "flatter," if you will, and "nuttier" tasting. Also richer and more complex (say the afficianadoes, including my brother-in-law, who once laid some excellent old Krug on me). If you're expecting it to taste like a youngster you may miss some of the enjoyment while trying to puzzle out what's going on.

[JohnL]

yes "older" champagnes will taste "nuttier" (oxidation) and flatter. However, if the Bollinger was stored well (in a reasonably cool vibration free environment) it will be quite youthful.

These champagnes age very well and as I noted earlier this wine has quite a long life ahead of it. In fact, when I drank it last year, it was still displaying a lot of its young characteristics with a hint of what this wine will be in the future. I'd say this is somewhat equivalent to a teen ager of say seventeen or eighteen--still young but displaying signs of adulthood.

By the way, a "backup bottle" of the same wine will set you back well over a hundred bucks on the current market!

Edited December 21, 2006 by JohnL (log)

[Shannon_Elise]

Thanks so much for all the quick replies. It has been store very well. I may be young, but I know not to store wines on top of the fridge (so no temp. changes). It also has only been moved once (when I moved into my new apartment). Now for a super-stupid question: What is the best way to chill it before New Years? I really only drink red wine at home (which I don't put in the fridge) and if it's not red wine, its a whiskey, so I'm not used to chilling a whole bottle of anything.

Nuttier? That sounds great to me! And flatter is fine as well (i don't like too many bubbles).

Shannon

[Busboy]

By the way, a "backup bottle" of the same wine will set you back well over a hundred bucks on the current market!

←

My back-ups are never as good as my first choices. More like those mini spare tires on cars -- better than nothing, but far from a first choice.

[Brad Ballinger]

Thanks so much for all the quick replies. It has been store very well. I may be young, but I know not to store wines on top of the fridge (so no temp. changes). It also has only been moved once (when I moved into my new apartment). Now for a super-stupid question: What is the best way  to chill it before New Years? I really only drink red wine at home (which I don't put in the fridge) and if it's not red wine, its a whiskey, so I'm not used to chilling a whole bottle of anything.

Nuttier? That sounds great to me! And flatter is fine as well (i don't like too many bubbles).

Shannon

←

Chilling it in the refrigerator is fine.

Bollinger wines are generally fairly toasty and nutty upon release. So you might expect something along those lines with perhaps a bit less forward fruit. Flatter is not a word I would use. A better desciption, IMO, is that the mousse (think bubbles) will likely be softer, more integrated.

[IlCuoco]

Thanks so much for all the quick replies. It has been store very well. I may be young, but I know not to store wines on top of the fridge (so no temp. changes). It also has only been moved once (when I moved into my new apartment). Now for a super-stupid question: What is the best way  to chill it before New Years? I really only drink red wine at home (which I don't put in the fridge) and if it's not red wine, its a whiskey, so I'm not used to chilling a whole bottle of anything.

Nuttier? That sounds great to me! And flatter is fine as well (i don't like too many bubbles).

Shannon

←

I always like a bucket of ice and water. Let it chill for 20 or 30 minutes, then open it (gently, please - let the gas ease out the cork, don't pop it open).

[budrichard]

First of all, your 1996 Grand Annee probably didn't leave the Bollinger celler until 2002 or later. So its not old, period, and unless you left it upright in your oven for the time you have had it, it will be perfectly normal Champagne without any of the aging that occurs in much older Champagnes. I always leave Champagne alone for a minimum of two years before i open a case. The wine settles and when opened, there is just soft 'PoP' with no liquid loss. I don't think the taste really changes in that time period and if the taste does, the change is impossible to quantify. You can qualitatively gauge the time from bottling to opening by observing the spread of the cork. A recently bottled Champagne will have a large spread but as the wine becomes older that spread decrease to none for older Champagnes. One of my books on champagne shows a set of pictures for reference.

Chill in ice, period.

DO NOT leave open to aerate as one Champagne producers says of thier Super Premium Champagne. Bollinger went to a lot of trouble to put the bubbles in the wine, why on earth would anyone want to decrease the bubbles other than some far out nonsense about breathing and changing the taste/bouquet?

In any event, don't worry, drink the wine and you will have a very pleseant experience.-Dick

[Brad Ballinger]

Chill in ice, period.

←

This is overrated. If you are pressed for time, yes, submerge the bottle in ice water for 20 minutes (ice water will cool it faster than ice alone), and it will be chilled to drinking temperature. If, as I'm guessing, you don't have a Champagne bucket, and don't want to try and figure out what to use for one, the refrigerator works just fine. Show me one restaurant that waits to serve Champagne until they've taken it out of the cooler and let it sufficiently chill in a bucket of ice.

In the spirit of Dick's other excellent advice not to worry, stick it in the fridge.

[budrichard]

BTW, Cyril Ray's book 'Bollinger' is a good read if it can be found. Published in 1971, I don't know if it is in reprint or what.

Sure put it in the fridge or better still the freezer to acquire a good chill. I like my sparkling wine to warm up in the glass. I hate it when they just pour into glasses and wait for someone to grab a glass while the wine goes flat!

Anyway, Bollinger is my favorite Champagne, the problem being that NV is about $37/bottle now with the prices for RD and Vieilles Vignes astronomical. There will be no more wood boxes with the little key to open in our house.

-Dick

Edited December 21, 2006 by budrichard (log)

[Brad Ballinger]

or better still the freezer to acquire a good chill

←

I remember one time where a friend of mine left a bottle of Krug Grand Cuvee in the freezer too long, and we all had Krug slushies.

[little ms foodie]

or better still the freezer to acquire a good chill

←

I remember one time where a friend of mine left a bottle of Krug Grand Cuvee in the freezer too long, and we all had Krug slushies.

←

now that is a slushie I could love!!!!

[jackal10]

Sell it, and buy 12 bottles of a good grower's champagne....

or 3 botlles of single malt...many times the pleasure.

[Brad Ballinger]

Sell it, and buy 12 bottles of a good grower's champagne....

or 3 botlles of single malt...many times the pleasure.

←

More like three bottles of grower juice.

[SBonner]

Helen and I had a bottle of 1982 Bollinger R.D. in London a fortnight ago from a friend's country cellar and it was still superb. Showing oxidation but not in a negative sense.

Cheers and enjoy.

Stephen Bonner

[jackal10]

More like three bottles of grower juice.

←

Maybe 6. 1996 Bollinger Grand Anne sells for between $100 and $150 according to Wine searcher. Nice small grower champagne is perhaps $20, going by UK prices.

The Bolly is good (Parker 95), but not five times better.

[Sam Iam]

On December 6, we celebrated our 20th anniversary at the Common Grill in Chelsea, Mi. I had called to ask if they would serve a bottle of 1990 Dom Perignon that I had been saving. They were happy to, and waived their usual $10 corkage.

It was wonderful, golden and creamy, and nothing at all like more current Champagne we've enjoyed. I had never heard of the change in the cork shape. It was totally parallel on the sides, and I've been puzzling about that (I saved the cork) ever since.

I'd stored it in my basement for most of the years that I'd owned it.

[Busboy]

Flatter is not a word I would use.  A better desciption, IMO, is that the mousse (think bubbles) will likely be softer, more integrated.

←

I knew one of you more articulate and knowledgable wine conisseurs would come up with a more appropriate and elegant word.

(speaking of "flatter" )

[bobferdon]

I recently had a well stored 1992 Grande Annee which was a bad vintage and is was great.

If you don't want that 96' I'll take if off your hands...

[Brad Ballinger]

I recently had a well stored 1992 Grande Annee which was a bad vintage and is was great.

←

A "good" or "bad" vintage is determined by many factors, particularly in Champagne. In Champagne, it is up to each producer to declare that the grapes they (or they're contracted growers) harvested in any particularly growing year are of high enough quality to warrant producing wine solely from their juice, without blending it with any reserve wine for other vintages.

Regarding 1992, some may consider it a "bad" vintage because not many Champagne producers made vintage wine. But I would trust the folks at Bollinger to make the right call (and your experience with the wine shows they probably did). Other 1992 vintage Champagne included Dom Perignon, Dom Perignon Rose, Krug, Philipponnat, Pommery, Taittinger, I could go on.

No, not all producers declared a vintage in 1992, but many reputable ones did. Most vintage charts, if you take stock in such things, rated 1992 a good year in Champagne (not classic our outstanding, but good nonetheless).

[Sam Iam]

Shannon_Elise,

We want to know ....

HOW WAS IT?!?

Edited July 4, 2007 by Sam Iam (log)