La Grande Année Rosé embodies Bollinger’s unique style in mastering the production of a rosé champagne. It is a powerful champagne with great complexity. Each vintage is an event and ranks among the best champagnes.
The 2012 vintage is a generous, full-bodied vintage, supported by a beautiful liveliness. For the development of La Grande Année Rosé 2012, the cellar master of the Bollinger house married 67% Pinot Noir and 33% Chardonnay. The grapes come from around twenty villages in Champagne, mainly Aÿ and Verzenay for the Pinot Noir and Le Mesnil-sur-Oger and Oiry for the Chardonnay. To this blend is added 5% red wine from the famous plot La Côte aux Enfants.
Faithful to Bollinger’s unique vinification method, La Grande Année Rosé 2012 is vinified and then aged entirely in oak barrels.
The maturation of the wines takes place under a cork stopper, for nearly 7 years. Something now rare in champagne, each bottle is stirred and disgorged by hand.
Reviews:
- Wine Advocate: Disgorged with eight grams per liter dosage, Bollinger’s 2012 Brut La Grande Année Rosé is showing beautifully, wafting from the glass with aromas of raspberries, plums, orange rind, walnuts and fresh bread that only hint of the complexity to come. Full-bodied, broad and vinous, with fine depth at the core, a pinpoint mousse and racy acids, it concludes with a long and perfumed finish. The blend includes 5% red wine exclusively from Bollinger’s La Côte Aux Enfants vineyard—which imparts delicate phenolic grip.ars of bottle age and should easily evolve for 20+ years in cold cellars.
- Vinous: The 2012 La Grande Année Rosé is airy, gracious and so wonderfully inviting. Crushed flowers, mint, white pepper and red berry fruit are all gracefully woven together. Today, the 2012 is naturally quite young and still shows the tension of a Champagne that was disgorged just a few months ago. Readers who prefer Champagnes with softer edges and a bit more flavor complexity will want to cellar the 2012. I have to admit, I very much like the wine today, in its youthful state, where its energy and focus are front and center. The 2012 is a blend of 67% Pinot Noir and 33% Chardonnay taken from 21 villages built around a core of Aÿ and Verzenay Pinot Noir and Le Mesnil-sur-Oger and Oiry Chardonnay, crus that are quite complementary. Disgorged January 2020. Dosage is 8 grams per liter.
Producer Information
Nicknamed “Boll” by the people of Champagne or “Bolly” by the English, the timeless and legendary Maison de Champagne Bollinger is part of the small circle of very large Champagne houses. The style of Bollinger champagne is defined through the exemplary precision brought to each moment of the production. Respect for traditions, riddling of bottles by hand, corking of reserve magnums, last resident cooper in the region, this taste for excellence symbolizes the entire culture of Bollinger champagne since its creation in 1829 in Aÿ. More than an art, it is a heritage.
