Champagne Day 2024 with a Couple of Seniors: La Grande Dame b. 1979 and Nicolas Feuillatte b. 2005

1979 Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin La Grande Dame and 2005 Nicolas Feuillatte

When I saw a bottle of 1979 Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin La Grande Dame at a neighborhood garage sale, I noticed right away that the level of liquid on the bottle was well below the cork– NOT a good sign! You want to see the the bottle is pretty full so that the liquid touches the cork. But I figured for the right price it would make a good story. When he said $5, I said SOLD! (Stay tuned and subscribe to learn what happens with a $5 bottle of old Bordeaux I bought at the same garage sale!)

When I got home, I excitedly looked it up to find the 1979 Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin La Grande Dame valued between $500 and $1000. Those bottles of course were likely cellared well, and I doubted this had been lucky to have been stored at the back of someone’s closet. I imagine any of these bottles would be feeling their age. Forty five is really old for most wines.  Read about older vintages of Dom Pérignon here in Drinking Stars and Champagne’s Every Day Pleasures.

Champagne is actually one of those wines that you rarely want to cellar for more than a few years–most makers imagine you’ll enjoy it sooner rather than later, although some winemakers do design it for cellaring longer. An easy way to tell the difference is whether the Champagne is a vintage designate or not — or which house it is from. I learned a lot on this topic during a ZOOM with Alice Paillard, daughter of Bruno Paillard.

I had already learned that Champagne doesn’t last forever the hard way with a 1984 Louis Roederer “Cristal” a friend gave me. I waited and waited for the right occasion — and waited too long. While it still had bubbles, it was amber in color and very oxidized. Pleasant but past its prime.

But for $5 I figured I’d give it a swirl, so I chilled it, and Sue and I made plans and a menu of a few favorite foods for to celebrate Champagne Day, those fabulous sparkling wines from the north of France in the Champagne region, held annually on the final Friday of October –and in 2024, that’s today, Friday October 25. I also chilled a back up bottle JIC! 

Cliquot: 1979 Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin La Grande Dame

When the time came to open up the 1979 Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin La Grande Dame, I pulled back the foil… and pulled. The foil was really stuck. And black. Clearly the wine had leaked out over the years, and the cork and cage and foil was all a discolored mess. I persevered to pull the cork excited for the POP! 

Well, there was no POP. There were no more bubbles. How sad! But there’s more to Champagne than bubbles, right? Think of all the great wine in the world that’s still, right? So I poured some in a glass, gave it a swirl, and a sniff.

Hmmm. Sue wanted nothing to do with it.

Very dark cloudy amber, and smelled like sherry, meaning it was oxidized. It also had aromas of candied apricots, cotton candy, and grape juice. On the palate, flat, oxidized, a bit bitter, tart apricot skin, with a very long finish of orange oil, and very mouthwatering. A shadow of what it once was, yet surprising by so much acidity, with tart green apple, and cardamon. Not really pleasant yet it is not unpleasant in part because of the complex nose. The wine hadn’t turned to vinegar, but was it good? Hmm. Like I said, Sue wanted nothing to do with it.

While they say you can’t get sick from old wine unless you overindulge, we couldn’t tell for sure whether it had been compromised, and since we had a back up wine, we moved on. I left the 1979 Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin La Grande Dame in the fridge and tasted it again the next night, but it was tasting bland– what flavor was left had faded. I finally gave up on it and put the rest of it in the compost. I have definitely tried to drink worse wines. I regret that I didn’t reach out to my friend Caroline Henry, an expert in Champagne, to hear her opinion about it. Sigh. 

Fortunately for us, the 2005 Nicolas Feuillatte was fabulous! Read about it and our favorite pairings below plus more from previous Champagne Days.

 

 

 

Veuve Clicquot 1979

Vintage Champagne 

  • 1979 Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin La Grande Dame

  • 2005 Nicolas Feuillatte Brut Chardonnay

Menu for Champagne

  • goat cheese stuffed figs with toasted walnuts
  • mushroom brie encrusted with pomegranates
  • comte cheese
  • spiced proscuitto
  • truffle salami 
  • truffle potato chips 
  • arugula salad with shaved carrots, parmesan, lemon dressing 
  • fig cookies with maple chili syrup

2005 Nicolas Feuillatte Brut Chardonnay

2005 Nicolas Feuillatte Brut Chardonnay

ABV: 12%
SRP: $50 (?)
Grapes: Chardonnay
Importer: Chateau Ste Michelle

Maybe ten years ago I found this on sale at the local grocery store, and picked it up. Like the Grande Dame, it was a vintage sparkling wine, so I knew it could cellar longer than most sparkling wines, but 2005? Almost 20 years? I was afraid I was starting to push that envelope, so I made this wine my back up to celebrate Champagne Day. And it performed well! 

Nicolas Feuillatte claims to be the #1 Champagne in France, and #3 in the World. They say their success is the strength of a “cooperative model, unique in champagne. A model that cultivates our values of collective commitment and solidarity, willingness to innovate and our daring spirit, shared by 5,000 winegrowers throughout the appellation.” The links to more details about their story, their growers, and their sustainability at the top of the page were broken for me, but I found links at the bottom that worked to learn that while individual growers might be growing organically, sustainability is not a significant part of their story. Due to pesticides, the Champagne region of France has some of the worst water in the world as reported by Caroline Henry, and written about here.

Nicolas Feuillatte logo

Their 5k growers are members of 82 cooperatives with 2100 hectares; see map below. From the Vallée de la Marne to the Côte des Bar, via the Massif de Saint-Thierry, Montagne de Reims, Côte de Sézanne, and the Vallée de l’Ardre, they get fruit from “11 of the 17 Grand Cru vineyards, 26 of 42 Premiers Crus, and 145 of the remaining 260 crus.”

The logo celebrates the people, the vines, the hearts, and with the star in the middle, their commitment to luxury. 

Appearance:  Small subtle bubbles; it has been open for a while without its cap and will most probably lose the bubbles fairly quickly, golden, daffodil, nice clarity, platinum rim.

Aroma: Quite expressive, baked apple blossom, brioche, marzipan danish. 

Palate: Nice fruit and acidity, lemon lime, gentle bubbles, tart green apple, brioche. For twenty years old, the wine has a lot of lovely, fresh character. 

Pairing: Very nice with the goat cheese stuffed figs  loving the toasted walnut on top, great with the spicy proscuitto, good with the truffle salami: this wine responds to rich salty foods. The Comte cheese goes well with brioche richness in the wine, fun with the pomegranate crusted brie. Lovely with the arugula salad, as the wine responds to the lemon vinegarette, the spicy arugula and the hint of dijon in the dressing. An earthiness in the salad goes so beautifully with the wine. Because the fig cookie was not too sweet and because there was a bit of a kick in the filling, it went great with the wine, and was a fun pairing to close an evening.

Champagne vineyards map from Nicolas Feuillatte

Here’s more Champagne Day Celebrations:

We’ve also written about Veuve Clicquot here.

Read about Madame Cliquot and other wonderful women of Champagne here.

So how will you celebrate Champagne Day 2024? What will be in your glass? Do you have a favorite Champagne or style?  Remember that Champagne only comes from Champagne, France! 

Champagne Day

2 thoughts on “Champagne Day 2024 with a Couple of Seniors: La Grande Dame b. 1979 and Nicolas Feuillatte b. 2005”

Please Comment! I'd love to hear from you!