Bereche Brut Reserve Champagne

It’s wines like this that occasionally make me wonder why I drink anything other than champagne. The best of these wines plumb crazy depths- straight to the earths core- and it can be a fucking trip when you compare them to still wines. But most champagnes don’t get to that potential the way Bereche does.

Available well under $100 pretty much anywhere, it’s hard to argue for a better use of your champagne dollar. In fact, I’d say this tastes like fancy-ass bubbles and pleases both newbie and serious tasting navel-gazers pretty equally.

With a large proportion of reserve (previous vintages) in the blend, this covers a huge spectrum of Champagne characters together in the same wine.

It smells brothy, autolytic (yeasty), candied walnuts and follows with an opulent tarte tatin, barrel-fermented flavor. This is very fresh, but also expansive, with a mousse-y mouthfeel that needs a big bowl stem to let it blow off some steam.

This has an old-school, luscious white burg with bubbles feel. Lots of little flashes of specific flavors - lemon meringue, mineral water, turkish delight, candied citrus. A dry, lengthy finish which shows some of the Pinot fruit in a delicate way.

A pretty remarkable wine for combining the elements of both linear and expansive champagnes in the same wine in great harmony.

Hopefully useful information: Imported in the USA by Rare Wine Co and Cream Wine. I see lots of UK and French retailers as well.