At Morcilla, fantastic meal of mostly small plates.
Beautiful peach color in the glass. 100% PN from the Aube.
Beautiful nose of brioche and kaffir lime.
The pros: Laser like zingy acidity, amazing freshness and transparency. Weightlessness and guplabiliity with only 11% abv.
Cons (for me): lacked richness and weight on the palate. Relatively one note at this point.
This is definitely not my typical champagne; I prefer opulent grand Marques with age. That said, it was nice although imo really required food to shine as the acidity was intense. Will it mellow with time? Probably. 5 more in the cellar so we’ll see.
Nice note Michael. Sounds quite similar to the note I posted in December. Think we are in agreement here.
It definitely leans to the less opulent and zingy side. Needs food and the right setting.
Cheers.
Popped a Fidele (also 2015) today and getting a pretty prominent sherried note on the finish and in the background on the nose that I don’t recall from previous bottles. Still super acidity, lively, great yeast on the nose, but coming across as having a more substantial solera style (and “richer” than previous bottles). Am I crazy? Or has just a bit more age on the bottle made a difference?
could be bottle variation, considering there is no added s02. i remember the 2015 base being the best release of fidele i have tasted with no oxidative elements.
I think that would be wholly unexpected. If memory serves, Fidele only has 5% of reserves in the blend, and it’s pretty close to being a vintage champagne. It shouldn’t have any substantial notes of solera style, unless something has changed, but I have drunk a fair amount of R14 and R15 and have never noticed this before. I guess it’s probably just bottle age or an off bottle. I have one more but wasn’t planning on opening it any time soon…maybe I should. I think it has a september 2017 disgorgement.
Preach! As a lover of champagne, I’ve enjoyed pretty much every bottle I’ve ever had except this one. I posted maybe 6 months ago that a bottle purchased at retail in Paris smelled like body odor and didn’t taste much better. In hindsight, sherried is a pretty good description.
Outside of the Saignee de Sorbee, I find everything that Vouette et Sorbee makes to be very variable from bottle to bottle and release to release. It has been a while since I have had a Fidele that I enjoyed. Some bottles show volatile acidity, some bottles show oxidation/maturity, some bottles show both, and some bottles can be nice. The wine isn’t meant to have sherried, solera, mature, or volatile notes to it, but it often does.
Amazed to hear about variability here - over 30+ bottles in the last 3 years, I haven’t ever got a whiff of that. Perhaps it’s just my palate, but I’m really sensitive to VA and oxidation is a well versed topic to me.