🍾 Mumm Cordon Rouge Oenothèque 1988

Mumm Cordon Rouge Oenothèque 1988 is the 1988 release of Cordon Rouge Oenothèque by the house Mumm, a vintage white Champagne in the Brut style.

According to the house, the wine is 65 % Pinot Noir, mainly from the Montagne de Reims (Verzenay, Ambonnay) and the Vallée de la Marne (Aÿ, Avenay), and 35 % Chardonnay. It was a classic year: a mild, rainy winter, even ripening and a harvest that began in mid-September, with an average potential alcohol of 9.2 %.

The house Mumm was founded in 1827 in Reims by the Mumm brothers. According to the house, Pinot Noir is its signature grape, and the first records of a Mumm vintage Champagne date from 1842.

The boundaries of the Champagne area were set by a law of 6 May 1919: parts of the Marne, Aube, Aisne, Haute-Marne and Seine-et-Marne departments. The designation’s specification allows seven grape varieties, dominated by Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier; grapes are picked as whole bunches, that is by hand, and the yield is limited to 10,400 kg per hectare.

According to the Comité Champagne, Champagne is served chilled to 8–10 °C, and bottles are kept in the dark at a steady 10–15 °C, without vibration. An opened bottle is best closed with a sparkling-wine stopper and kept cold.

It is sold under the protected designation of origin Champagne: the bubbles come only from a second fermentation in the bottle, and the wine is aged for at least 15 months before sale (36 for vintage). Brut on the label is an EU sugar term: less than 12 g of sugar per litre.

Why it matters to you. According to the house, it comes in: a 0.75 l bottle. The year on the label is the harvest year, so different years of the same line are different wines. The WHO reminds: there is no safe level of alcohol.