Gosset Champagne Grand Millesime / 2015 / 1.5L

Description:

Gosset Grand Millésime 2015 is a vintage Champagne from the Épernay heartland, built on 59% Pinot Noir and 41% Chardonnay, with the ripeness of a warm season held in check by the house's refusal to put its wines through malolactic fermentation. In magnum it is generous and gently golden, but the acid line runs straight through the middle.

Ripe white peach, poached pear and pink grapefruit lead, with white flowers and aniseed behind them, and time on lees showing as brioche and toasted almond. The fruit is riper than most Champagne of this address, a signature of the 2015 growing season, yet nothing turns broad or sweet.

A dosage of 4g/L keeps the wine dry and taut. The mousse is fine and persistent, the texture silky over a chalky, faintly saline core, and the finish long, citrus-edged and dusted with spice. The 1.5L format means slower, steadier development than the 750mL, so this magnum still feels youthful and firm.

Serve with oysters, tempura prawns or a whole roast chicken. It has enough body for scallops in butter, smoked salmon blinis and hard cheeses such as aged comté, and the magnum size makes it a wine for a table of eight rather than a quiet Tuesday.

Drinking beautifully now, with the structure and the format to carry it comfortably through to 2038 in a good cellar.