Vilmart & Cie’s Grand Cellier d’Or 2021 is a vintage, Premier Cru Brut from Rilly-la-Montagne in the Montagne de Reims, built around Chardonnay (80%) with Pinot Noir (20%). The fruit comes from older vines—around 50 years—in the lieu-dit “Blanches Voies,” a chalky limestone site that helps explain the wine’s firm mineral line.

This cuvée is a clear example of Vilmart’s house approach: hand-harvested fruit, base wines fermented and matured in 228-liter oak barrels for about 10 months, no malolactic fermentation, and extended bottle aging—about 42 months on lees—before release. Dosage is reported at roughly 6–7 g/L (the producer cites 6 g/L, while Vinous notes 7 g/L). Vinous also reports the wine was “Disgorged: July 2025.”

The season itself was challenging. Decanter notes that “Vilmart lost half its production in 2021’s mildew-ridden season,” but calls the finished Champagne “one of the vintage’s top wines released so far.” That’s an excellent review at 95 points, and Decanter’s confidence is grounded in how the wine carries its concentration: “graceful, focused and… ageworthy,” with “lime, peach blossom, nut oil and candied lemon” and a palate that is “driven but not austere,” finished with “beautiful length and restraint.” Decanter adds that the mousse is “meringue-soft” and the balance “perfectly” judged, concluding this is “a 2021 to approach with confidence.”

Vinous (93 points) emphasizes the wine’s energy and maritime minerality, describing it as “bright, focused and bristling with energy,” with “lemon peel, chalk, slate, oyster shells and white pepper” that “sizzle with saline-infused energy.” Taken together, the reviews point to a Champagne that’s brisk and precise, but shaped by barrel fermentation and long lees aging into a more layered, vinous style suited to both near-term drinking and cellaring.