Champagne with an extra special touch
By Joe Hyam
If a customer is planning a small, special event where the unusual has to combine with the excellent, then it could be time to consider a Pommery 1980 vintage Flacon d'Exception in a magnum. This is a vividly fresh yet mature Champagne that is disgorged to order.
What is special about Flacon d'Exception is that it is a vintage Champagne - in this case 15 years old - which has remained on the lees undisturbed all its life since its second fermentation. It is also an extra brut and nature style of Champagne to which no liqueur de dosage has been added.
It combines the vivacity of youth with a mature structure and a finish that evolves elegantly on the palate.
Dry run
Normally, Champagne is disgorged after anything from the mandatory 15 months to five or six years for vintage or special cuvée wines. After disgorgement - the removal of the lees that have collected in the neck of the bottle - the liqueur de dosage is added to compensate for the wine lost in the process. The dosage comprises cane sugar and still Champagne. In normal circumstances it has another function - to help determine the style of the wine according to the amount of sugar used. In the case of extra sec, no sugar is used in the liqueur.
Extra sec is not a style widely found in the UK where brut, in which 1% of sugar is used in the liqueur, is the most commonly accepted dry style.
One thing to note is that the reason the wine is disgorged to order at very short notice is that it should be drunk within a few weeks of receipt.
True to tradition
An attractive feature of this Champagne is that it is true to the Pommery tradition and style. The wine is sourced from Pommery's own grand cru vineyards. Jeanne-Alexandrine Pommery is reputed to have pioneered the dry style of Champagne so popular today and especially so in the UK in the 1870s.
Prince Alain de Pommery, the great-great-grandson of Madame Pommery, is the man behind Flacon d'Exception. He is only the eighth cellarmaster at Pommery since 1836 and is responsible for maintaining the airy delicacy which is Pommery's hallmark in its standard Brut Royal and to some extent in its rosé and vintage labels.
To order Flacon d'Exception telephone Laurence Canivet at Pommery on 00 33 26616232. It costs £170 a magnum including tax and shipment.
The price of a magnum is not far off a case of 12 bottles of Pommery Brut Royal, which has an on-trade ex-VAT price of £160. It is available from Bibendum (0171-916 7700).
