Champagne

The House of Ruinart makes one of the most delicious champagnes we stock here in store; this sensationally full bodied, creamy blanc de blancs. This champagne is made 100% from Chardonnay and is a multi vintage blend with notes of intense white floral and peach aromas intermingled with hints of golden ripe yellow fruit and a complexity of white nutty notes on the finish. Crisp refreshing acidity adds length and tension to every great sip, which finishes with a lingering flavour. 

Most of the grapes in this wine and those in all Ruinart champagnes are grown in the C?te des Blancs and Montagne de Reims terroirs in Champagne.

* The House of Ruinart was first established in the Champagne region in 1729 and was inspired by a monk. 

Blanc de Blancs champagnes are a Chardonnay lover's dream with nougat, vanilla, fresh cream and nutty flavours combining in a smooth textured dry, full bodied bubbly.

It's made from Grand Cru vineyards in the villages of Avize and Ogier in the Côte des Blanc; the Champagne region's epicentre of Chardonnay. 

This high quality sparkling wine is a dry style with 9 grams per litre of residual sugar and it is fresh, soft and rich in style. The wine was disgorged in July 2019. 

Perrier Jouet Champagne is a smooth and creamy, full bodied champagne made from grapes grown in over 70 villages in the Cotes du Blancs in the Champagne region; a Chardonnay dominant part of the region, which comes through in the creamy rich taste. 

This Champagne house was established in 1811 by Pierre-Nicolas-Marie Perrier, who added the maiden name of his wife, Ad?le Jou?t, to the name. They settled in the town of ?pernay, where the company owns vineyards A?, Avize, Cramant and Mailly. Many of the holdings are planted with Chardonnay, which brings delicacy and freshness to this lovely sparkling style. 

A great champagne made by father-son grower-winemaker team. The pair are based in Ay, also home to Champagne Bollinger, to which they sell approximately half of their grapes each year. The vineyards around Ay in the Champagne region are focussed strongly on Pinot Noir, which makes this wine taste toasty and rich. These alluring savoury qualities are softened, mellowed and added to in the autolytic process of ageing the bubbles in the bottle while the lees (decomposing yeast cells) break down, releasing deliciously rich flavours on the journey. 

A great champagne made in relatively small volumes, pushing boundaries of great flavour to new heights. 

Leclerc Briant is a certified organic, biodynamic champagne producer, a rarity in a region. where organics have yet to cast a significant sway.

This deliciously rich and yeasty blend is made up of 40% Pinot Noir, 40% Pinot Meunier and 20% Chardonnay. Malolactic fermentation occurs naturally and sulfite levels are kept modest, between 20 and 30 milligrams per litre. The wine spends nine to 11 months in stainless steel tanks with 20% in oak barrels and more than two years on the lees in the bottle. Dosage is below 4 grams per litre  so this is dry - and tastes it. Stunning fresh, full bodied, expressive champagne.

What the critics say

''Very deep copper colour. A really glorious array of wild, floral aromas. Hugely distinctive and the opposite of formulaic with a tiny little bead. Mouth-filling. Tingly on the (dry) finish. So amazingly long with some lemon notes on the end! This is superior champagne that I would recommend to any serious champagne lover. So full of life! ''

17/20 Jancis Robinson 

''Firm and focused, with a lively bead carrying an aromatic range of almond financier, crushed blackberry, chalk and fresh ginger. Offers a lip-smacking, citrusy finish.''

90/100 Wine Spectator

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The Cuve?e Royale Brut is a superbly intense champagne with depth of flavour and complex tastes of white peach, floral notes of white flowers giving way to the fruity ones and dialled up yeasty freshness, derived from 36 months aging with 20% reserve wines in the blend. The cepage is 35% Pinot Noir, 35% Chardonnay, 30% Pinot Meunier and grapes come from over 20 different top ranking vineyards, including at Cumie?res, Damery, Hautvillers and Verneuil.

What the critics say

?Vanilla shortbread seems seductive on the nose. Slender but fine palate majors on the lemon, spice, and hints of honey in a soothing and gentle fashion. Lovely aperitif. Drinking Window 2020 to 2025.? 

Decanter - 90 Points

Dom Perignon is one of the world's great prestige champagnes in name and in taste. Made only in single vintage years, this latest one is a blend of 50/50 Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, aged for eight years on lees, which retains freshness while allowing the yeast autolysis process to create complexity and power in this multi layered, intensely richly flavoursome sparkling wine. 

This tastes full bodied, dry, creamy with complex layers of flavour. Serve chilled in a large glass to it its complexity and freshness shine. 

This good value magnum of Mo?t Imp?rial comes from the large Champagne house of LVMH (Louis Vuitton Mo?t Hennessey) and is typically a blend of 30 to 40% Pinot Noir, 30 to 40% Pinot Meunier with 20 to 30% Chardonnay for balancing crispness and freshness. It's made from Mo?t & Chandon's vineyards in all of the five main grapegrowing areas in the Champagne region.

Mo?t Imp?rial is typically a blend of 30% Pinot Noir, 40% Pinot Meunier and 30% Chardonnay and is made from grapes grown in several different sub-regions within the wider Champagne region.

It tastes medium to full bodied and dry with crisp acidity and a long finish. Flavours are of fresh apples and citrus. 

It is part of the large Louis Vuitton Mo?t Hennessey (LVMH) group; the world's largest champagne producer. 

This great Champagne is made by the Epernay based producer, Champagne Lombard, and it is staggeringly good quality with amazing balance and complexity for this price. 

Smooth, zingy, citrusy and beautifully toasty. A rare good deal. 

Perrier-Jouet Blanc de Blancs is a free spirit - vibrant, dynamic, independent. Bright and fresh as the morning dew, it is the perfect champagne to serve as an aperitif, to celebrate the first day of spring.

A great champagne with tight structure and enormous weight, character, body and length. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir each make up 45% of the blend with 10% Pinot Meunier and a lack of obvious malolactic characters allowing the fresh acidity to shine in this wine, which gains its body from fruit weight and long lees ageing of four years. This is a dry style with 8 grams of residual sugar per litre; it has great balance of flavour and richness balanced by vibrant acidity. 

La Grande Dame is one of the great champagnes and is a big, dry, toasty, full bodied wine, made from 90% Pinot Noir, which adds layers of savoury depths to this complex bubbly, and 10% Chardonnay. It is named in homage to the Grands Cru vineyards from which the grapes in this wine come, from Champagne villages A?, Bouzy, Ambonnay, Verzy and Verzenay and 47% Chardonnay from Avize, Oger and Le Mesnil-sur-Oger. 

Its name also pays homage to the Grande Dame of Champagne, the late widow Clicquot, whose main legacy is to have left both the brand and the region in better condition than she found them, mostly famously by inventing riddling; the turning of the bottle to remove the yeast sediment into its neck, prior to disgorgement. This resulted in higher quality, cleaner, fresher bubbles in both look and taste. Her quest was quality and she is widely credited with having raised it significantly in the Champagne region and in the bottles it produces.