The Green Grape in Fort Greene will host their annual champagne tasting on Wednesday, December 30 from 5 PM until 7 PM. 765 Fulton Street. They deliver.
Every single champagne at the tasting — and on the list below — is a grower champagne, which means that the grapes were raised,
harvested and vinified by grower instead of
being sold off to a big champagne house.
Here are the champagnes to be
poured. If you can't make it to the tasting you may want to just buy a bottle for yourself for New Year's Eve. The words are from the Green Grape website.
Henri
Goutorbe Champagne Special Club 2002
$90.00
A real New Year's Treat! The 'Club
de Viticulteurs Champenois' began in 1971 as
a way for the smaller growers to join forces
in order to market their wines. With over a
dozen different producers working together
they felt they could more easily compete with
the larger Champagne houses. They created the
'Special Club' bottling with the idea that it
would always be the best of what each
producer had to offer and would always be
presented in the same oddly shaped bottle.
Henri Goutorbe is one of the leading
vine-nurserymen in Champagne and the owner of
Hotel Castel Jeanson in Ay, along with being
one of the great small growers.
The Special Club has malic, yeasty and sorrel
aromas and shows great length. 2002 is a
stellar vintage.
Chartogne-Taillet
Rose, NV
$59.00
Our only rose
champagne,
it is not only fun to drink,
the pleasing pink color makes it festive in
the glass. Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes
provide the base to which Pinot Noir still
wine is added to give color. It blossoms
with aromas of strawberries, and, believe it
or not, prosciutto and can stand up to more
assertive foods than our other
champagnes.
Henri
Goutorbe "Cuvee
Prestige",
NV $45.00
This non-vintage version from the great Henri
Goutorbe was best value in the WSJ this
month. The wine, packed with red cherry
fruit, is
bright, generous and has an amazing long
finish.
Jean
Velut Champagne Brut Tradition NV
$40.00
30 years ago Denis Velut's
grandfather Jean established this domain in
the Cote des Bars as a recoltant/manipulant
(small grower) following a venerable history
of supplying grande marque houses further
north. Montgueux is the village where Denis
and Anne Velut's 7 hectares of vines reside
and surprisingly in the context of the larger
region, this is an area planted to roughly
85% Chardonnay due to the phenomenon of it
being highly concentrated in calcaire soil.
Half of the grapes grown here are still sold
to negociant houses and it seems as though
this is the perfect economical balance
allowing Denis the leeway to carefully craft
the very best wines that he can. Just 3000
cases are produced here each year.
Structure is provided by the steely austerity
of the chalk infused chardonnay while the
ripe Pinot provides a fruity lift.