What's the deal with 1996 champagnes? Another oxidized Dom Perignon

I bought a lot of 96` champagnes and loved everyone for the first fews years. Then it seems many just did not last and aged too quickly, lost some of their energy and treasures and just became average if that. I’m talking about Cristal, Dom Perignon, Taittinger CdC, Salon, Clicquot La Grande Dame and the like. Here’s another example from a recent dinner and extracted from another thread that featured 9 older Spanish reds:

1996 DOM PERIGNON- I was elated to see this come out until I got a whiff of the nose= corked and a taste= oxidized; otherwise, it was great! Well, not really. The underlying taste profile did have some remnants of some nice citrus fruit and a bit of ginger, but that’s about it; having 3 bottles left in the cellar, I was not really happy at the showing of this bottle.
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I’ve had north of 30 bottles of the 96 DP and haven’t experienced an oxidised bottle. And all the bottles of CdC have been superb. That said, LGD, Billecart and some others have had their share of disappointments.

I have had “early oxidized” ‘96s from Bolly, Egly, Pierre Peters and others. Been a troublesome vintage for years.

In my experience, this is pretty consistently delicious!

But, no wine region is exempt from the porous, poor quality corks of the era; and on top of that, it’s a collectible vintage that has been much traded.

Some 1996 Champagnes certainly did age faster than anticipated, going from being too young to too old without any intermission of maturity, but the 1996 DP doesn’t strike me as numbering among them.

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In my experience, this is pretty consistently delicious!

But, no wine region is exempt from the porous, poor quality corks of the era; and on top of that, it’s a collectible vintage that has been much traded.

Some 1996 Champagnes certainly did age faster than anticipated, going from being too young to too old without any intermission of maturity, but the 1996 DP doesn’t strike me as numbering among them.

Any trends or patterns to this (e.g. certain producers, communes, styles)? It seems more or less received wisdom that 1996 is an exceptional vintage to cellar, and I’d love to hear more about what to avoid

I think at this stage, now there is no more wine to sell, many producers are quite candid about having picked, following the numbers, before true maturity (same story in the Côte de Beaune). There are plenty of pretty senile 1996s Champagnes out there, and I don’t really want to single out a handful and leave others off the hook. Happy to exchange further in a DM.

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just had a great one w Jerry.

Blake - What was the provenance, and who was the importer?

Good point William about the collectible vintage and ensuing turnover. Makes a case for buying the early releases and holding them for the long run.

Actually, I’ve had good DPs and this one just added to the plethora of all of the others, especially LGDs.

John, the provenance was really good. Cellared properly for a decade, but who knows what before that? Don’t know the importer, but will ask.

1996 DP is not one of the bad 1996s. There are bad bottles and some variation amongst the 1996 DP as there is with every vintage of DP and I have had some subpar 1996 DP, but nothing more than I would expect. I think DP made in the 1990s was much more variable than prior decades as this is when they really started expanding production after acquiring the historic vineyards of Pommery and Lanson (which enabled production to go up by millions of bottles). 1990 was probably the most variable DP vintage of recent memory with some batches just being plain bad, but others wonderful. This DP variation also hits somewhat in the first decade of the 2000s when Pommery’s historic vineyards were fully integrated after Pommery was sold off by LVMH, but not as much as what I experienced wtih the 1990s vintages. It is also worth mentioning the fact that many older bottles of DP were not properly stored and that LVMH wines didn’t have the greatest care in US distribution when the 96 DP was released.

The problem with 1996 Champagnes as mentioned by William above was with mistimed picking. Most folks picked 1996 based on the numbers on paper and not by tasting the grapes. The end result was that a good deal of the Pinot grapes (especially Pinot Noir) were ripe by the numbers (according to historical data), but were not ripe phenolically. This has led to wines that quickly matured, yet still showed sizzling acidity. The higher the Pinot Noir content the more dangerous territory you are in though BdB and Chardonnay heavy blends have done very well. Some blends have also done well, but you need to be careful. It all depended on whether the grapes were picked when you had the theoretical 10/10 (potential alcohol and acidity) without regard to phenolic ripeness or let the potential alcohol go up a bit and take only a slight dip in acidity as the grapes ripened phenolically. Those that didn’t chase the 10/10 just for the historical rarity, but went after proper ripeness, did very, very well. Historically, the grapes were almost always phenolically ripe (or ripe enought) at 10 potential alcohol so many folks just went by the paper excited that the acidity was a percent or two higher than they ever would have expected.

A lot was learned from the 1996 vintage (and I think the 2002 vintage too). This has led to a return of everyone tasting the grapes and tracking phenolics. A nice merger of science, data, tasting, historical respect, and common sense leads to much better wines today and I can’t imagine a repeat of 1996 happening now. 1996 is a top notch vintage, but not a lengendary one. It should have been one the greatest vintages (or possibly the greatest) of the century along with 1982, 1959, 1947, 1928, 1921, and 1911, but it wasn’t.

Now… that doesn’t mean there aren’t legendary and classical Chamapgnes from 1996 to go along with an equal number of big disappointments.

*Edited for misspelling of ‘big’ in the last sentence of the post.

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have a view about the clos de goisses?

Great stuff Brad and William. This info makes the thread worth posting even if I threw 96` DP under the bus when it really has done well and I had one exception. The cumulative exceptions have been too numerous given such a revered vintage.

‘96 Salon and Comtes have been consistent, glorious experiences for me, but ‘96 La Grande Dame broke my heart!

Not William, but this was one of the most haunting wines I have ever had on release (espeically the April 2006 disgorgement). It was full of potential and I have never in my life seen a young wine explode with aromatics, flavor, and potential from the glass. People were left mesmerized when it was opened at tastings. I bought quite a bit of it of it and drank a lot of it when young; I still have a good deal left, but haven’t had an impressive bottle for the last five years from my stock or from others. I am holding out hope, but it has become rather mature and animalistic. Some bottles are better than others, but it is never in the upper half of what we are drinking and the bottle is rarely finished.

I have seen Clos des Goisses go through this kind of mid-life crisis before so I have a sliver of hope, but this has not been all that good for the last few years and I have to admit that this probably won’t make a comeback (although I still hope it does) and I called this wine wrong in terms of its potential for improvement. Still, it was damn, damn tasty and seductive when young.

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96 Grande Dame was great on release, but quickly matured and is very hit or miss today with most of the bottles being misses. Another underachiever although it was worth it on release and for the next few years.

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Well this is not the response I was hoping for! Oh well. I only have a couple of bottles. I’ll hold on to them for a while on the hope of a rebirth

I just bought a few '96 Champagnes and have been excited to finally taste what I thought was an excellent vintage, but now my expectations a very tempered

My 2ps worth…

96 salon - ludicrously overhyped. Sold all mine, bottles and mags
96dp oeno - consistently fantastic
96 comtes - consistently fantastic and better than the (also great) 95
96 legras cuvee st vincent - v.good from mag recently
96 clos goisses - either one of the greatest champagnes you’ll ever drink or one of the worst