The Paillard family disgorges bottles of their Réserve Privé Blanc de Blancs two times
each year, roughly six months apart, after four years of aging on the lees (about a year longer
normally than the Première Cuvée)...
The Paillard family disgorges bottles of their Réserve Privé Blanc de Blancs two times
each year, roughly six months apart, after four years of aging on the lees (about a year longer
normally than the Première Cuvée). Although I did not write down the disgorgement date of this
bottling, it is base year 2007, which would probably mean that it was disgorged on one of the
two occasions that the house was doing this during 2012. The dosage this year was five grams
per liter. The wine is absolutely lovely, offering up a deep and youthful nose of pear, delicious
apples, lemon blossoms, chalky minerality and a gentle topnote of smokiness. On the palate the
wine is deep, full-bodied, crisp and very minerally in personality, with a fine core, elegant
mousse and great cut and grip on the long and beautifully balanced finish. This still needs three
or four years to really blossom and develop some of its secondary layers of complexity, but it
will be a stellar bottle with a bit of patience. 2017-2040.