Castelnau, Millésimé Brut 2006 (12.5%)

£68 Castelnau Wine Agencies

Praise has been lavished on Champagne’s 2008 vintage in recent years, and justly – but this beautifully aged Champagne also underscores how the 2006 vintage, here as elsewhere in France, also has a terrific amount of pleasure to offer. The colour has yet to deepen towards gold, and for the time being keeps its bright straw allure; the aromas are rich, bready, enticing and refined, beginning to show the harmony of age. It’s pure and structured on the palate, clearly built on fine Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir, with Chardonnay adding grace notes and charm. The dosage is sagely discreet: cellar time as much as grams of sugar give the wine its finishing roundness and poise.

‘Our winery is a place where time is on hold,’ says Castelnau’s chef de caves Carine Bailleul. ‘When I walk around the cellars, I hear voices from the past. It goes through my body.’ It is an understandable response from someone who has worked for almost 20 years at Castelnau, a Champagne house that specialises in long ageing of its wines and is part of a cooperative comprising 750 growers and 900ha of vineyards spread over 155 crus.

‘We take care of all the musts just like we take care of a child,’ says Bailleul, who became chef de caves last year. ‘We are witnessing the birth of wines and we are present at each step of their lives. Sometimes, over the years, their personalities change, sometimes they remain the same.

‘Our work is knowing how to use the right wines for the right blend. We taste our reserve wines three or four times a year to keep track of how they are ageing – the idea is to try to have an up-to-date mental photograph of our vat room at any given moment.’

Castelnau’s Best in Show winner is a blend of 50% Chardonnay, 30% Meunier and 20% Pinot Noir – ‘the perfect balance for ageing a vintage’, reckons Bailleul.