Grand Cellar, Gold Standard
2004 Vilmart et Cie Grand Cellier d'Or
Cult Grower Champagne
Here's an enigmatic Champagne, where the high-yield vintage didn't affect outstanding quality, where oak treatment never overwhelms delicate acidity, where the low price simply doesn't match the class, the cult following...
Last week, we offered out Vilmart's non-vintage rosé, and the high demand reinforced the fact that this is a house with a very avid following. It's evident that, as Richard Juhlin says, "Vilmart has quickly established cult status, only topped among growers by J. Selosse."
Today we offer a step up in the Vilmart collection: 2004 Grand Cellier d'Or.
To our collective palates, the 04 Grand Cellier d'Or is something of an enigma - a wine that throws expectations of how it should be right out the window. (Great things are often like that.)
To start with, there's the 2004 vintage in Champagne, which had, overall, the highest yields on record in history. But in many cases - especially Vilmart's, as they routinely harvest very low yields - quantity in no way overwhelmed quality. The grapes, particularly the Chardonnay (which makes up 70% of the Grand Cellier d'Or cuvée) came through with outstanding acidity working in line with excellent ripeness and striking concentration. This is extroverted, luscious, tropical fruit corseted tightly, seductively, by wires of fine acid.
Then there's the question of the oak treatment. Vilmart, along with Krug and Henri Giraud, is one of the few Champagne houses that pulls off, beautifully, the use of wood in both the fermenting and aging of the wine. Somehow, the cellar work with wood serves to offer the wine outlandish depth and richness in the suavest form imaginable, without affecting the wine's transparency, the clarity and detail of flavor.
In the 04 Grand Cellier d'Or, think waves of coconut cream poured onto a spiced and just-baked pie crust, or vanilla cake batter encasing exotic fruit, all that lavishness somehow seeming to float and glide weightlessly, silkenly, across your palate. Then there's the finish, fanning out in technicolor iridescence and lasting well into a second minute. Completely on-point. This expert balance of power and finesse is rare, especially at this price-point.
The 04 Grand Cellier d'Or is simply rocking right now, but as its power and serious mineral spine unwind in the next decade, this will only get better. For cult grower Champagne, today's pricing is almost unbelievable - another enigma... but this is a tiny parcel, and the Vilmart loyalists will act quickly. All orders are subject to confirmation.
Please email us at offers@crushwineco.com or call the store at (212) 980-9463 to place your order.
Ian McFadden
Director, Fine & Rare Wine
Crush Wine & Spirits
2004 Vilmart et Cie Grand Cellier d'Or
Wine is pre-arrival
NET | No further discount