Piper Heidsieck - Champagner Rare Brut 2006

JEB DUNNUCK: "The flagship release is the 2006 Champagne Rare, a 70/30 split of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir that’s a cellar selection from 8 different Grand Cru vineyards. Tight, backward, and straight-up structured, it offers brilliant notes of stone fruits, toasted brioche, white flowers, and obvious minerality. Needing plenty of air to show at its best, this beauty has a wonderful mid-palate, a racy mousse, and the balance and class to cruise for over two decades in cool cellars."

WINE SPECTATOR: "Aromas and flavors of toasted brioche and grilled nut enrich the yellow plum, nectarine and grated ginger notes of this rich and creamy Champagne. Finely woven and beautifully integrated, with a firm backbone of mouthwatering acidity providing precise balance for the lush range of flavor. Drink now through 2029. 14,000 cases made."

THE WINE ADVOCATE: "The 2006 Brut Cuvée Rare is a rich, gourmand rendition of this prestige bottling, unfurling in the glass with a complex bouquet that mingles aromas of yellow orchard fruit, pears and fresh pineapple with nuances of buttered toast, iodine and smoke. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, broad and textural, while remaining fresh and surprisingly tight-knit at the core, concluding with a long and saline finish. There's sufficient structural tension here to promise more than a decade's graceful evolution, and although this is nicely balanced, it's a generous, sun kissed rendition of the Cuvée Rare that reflects the warm vintage. The blend is 70% Chardonnay and 30% Pinot Noir."

DECANTER: "Cellar master Régis Camus sums up each vintage at this tasting with a single word or phrase. In 2006, ‘sunny’ is the word, reflecting both the warm and sometime humid summer conditions, and also the style of the wine: bold and generous. It has a golden hue and seductive aromas of nutmeg, quince and tropical fruit such as mango and kiwi. He describes it as a vintage ‘gorged with the sun’, going on to outline the ‘ping-pong’ match of the palate which glides effortlessly between generosity of texture and freshness. Opulence abounds. Drinking Window 2019 - 2026"