It had been a bit more than a year since I last tasted the 2008 Veuve Clicquot Vintage Brut Rosé and the wine continues to show very nicely. As readers may recall, this is the exact same wine as the regular 2008 vintage...
It had been a bit more than a year since I last tasted the 2008 Veuve Clicquot Vintage Brut Rosé and the wine continues to show very nicely. As readers may recall, this is the exact same wine as the regular 2008 vintage, but with fourteen percent still pinot noir included in the cépages of sixty-one percent pinot noir, thirty-five percent chardonnay and five percent pinot meunier. The wine was finished with a dosage of eight grams per liter. This is the first vintage at Clicquot to include a percentage of vins clairs that were barrel-fermented since the 1970s. The 2008 Rosé offers up a fine and precise bouquet of cherries, a touch of blood orange, a fine base of soil, gentle spice tones, fresh-baked bread and a smoky topnote. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and focused, with a good core, bright acids, frothy mousse and very good length and grip on the complex finish. This has lost a touch of the vibrancy it showed last spring and is not aging quite as well as I had hoped, but it remains a very well-made wine that is a notable step up in quality from the last vintage-dated Rosé that I tasted from the house. That said, I did overrate this just a touch a year ago. (Drink between 2017-2030)