Learned never to hesitate when you see any of Bouchard’s gems…just unloaded 6 Vilaine, 2 Urseles, and 1 Boloree. The rarity of these wines is only increasing. Hard to make Val Vilaine a house wine when they never hit the retail shelf.
Unloaded? You’re selling them?
No…unloaded from the shipping container…sorry to get your hopes up.
drank one over the weekend. Panzer import. A little lean but enjoyable.
Well, now you are hooked!
I will be doing some more videos with Cédric in Spring 2021, looking at his various lieux-dits and way of working.
Lean!?
I have found it rather rich and fleshy. I would have been expecting people to fault it for an excess of those characteristics, if anything!
Alan, did you decant? A bottle a couple months ago only opened up after about an hour in the decanter. Adding richness and texture and length. I highly recommend the decant.
The only vintage I’ve tried is the 2015, which was delicious. I’m not an experienced champagne taster, but I wouldn’t have guessed it was no dosage. Are all vintages of this bottling no dosage? How does 2018 compare to the 2015? I have one bottle left. Drink or hold?
I must say, this seemed like a fabulous value at $56 3 years ago. Have prices really climbed so much that $80 is considered a good deal for the current release?
Thanks,
Peter
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Yes…my op mentioned that I was a bit worried at first that it would be too “lean” for my wife. That really switched gears after a bit and it just filled out and Exhibited so much synergy between the senses after some air (maybe warming a bit?). The fruit really popped after some time, although if your looking for any complexity from the body filling brioche leaning style, it’s not yet here.
Would be interested to hear more experiences for midterm 5-10 years with the The more modern wines.
I have an 05 Inflorescence Blanc de Noirs La Parcelle For check in on either Christmas Eve or New Years.
Cédric is no-dosage, all the time, all the wine.
Can someone give me a guide on how to read Roses de Jeanne vintages? I am just a tad confused as I saw a bottle of 2019 Roses de Jeanne / Cedric Bouchard Champagne Blanc de Noirs Cote de Val Vilaine but when I checked its Celllartacker entry it is actually V17 (2017 vintage). Not sure how retailers “name” their bottles of Bouchard but it would be most disappointing if I bought a “2018” bottle and then saw it was actually a 2016 based wine.
Because he doesn’t adhere to the necessary regulations to label them as vintage Champagnes, they’re all labelled NV, but the V# is the year from which all the grapes in the bottle come from. So yeah, they’re vintage wines. Maybe 2019 was the disgorgement date - I know that William reviews his wines with the vintage date since that’s the easiest way to do it but Cellartracker is difficult when it comes to sparkling because people sometimes don’t know how to label them.
Ugghh, this definitely makes it tricky, for example Sommpicks is selling the 2019, but when you click on their review links for CT, it is actually looks like 2019 is the disgorgement date, so it’s V17. The 2018 vintage has a disgorgement date of 2020 I think, it is hard to tell if an online retailer is using the disgorgement date or the vintage date when they are selling the wine.
I don’t think it would be disappointing at all, because the 2016 is better than the 2018 and I think the best Val Vilaine made to date!
But yes, if you want to know what you are buying it is as well to double-check…
There is no rush to drink up the 2015s.
In Champagne, no dosage doesn’t necessarily mean no residual sugar, as it isn’t uncommon to have a few grams of sugar left after the two fermentations (this is true of plenty of white Burgundy, btw). I haven’t every sent any of Cédric’s wines to the lab to see. But, I think their richness and charm is more a function of very low yields and ripe grapes.
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Really why should I care? It’s Bouchard. This isn’t some million bottle blend from a huge champagne house. You are going to get a vintage expression from a particular piece of dirt with all it’s idiosyncrasies. If you want consistency and high number scores from JS, just buy Cristal 
pop and pour
Just got my 2018 allocation delivered, best part of Christmas this year.
Thread caused me to buy 6 x 2019 Val Vilaine pre-arrival From Sommpicks and 4 x 2013 Bechalin. Expensive night!
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I woke up seeing the Val Vilaine removed from my cart (probably you or the others on this thread buying them up), so I pulled the trigger on the 3 x Haute Lemble that remained.