🍾 Nicolas Feuillatte Palmes d'Or Rosé Intense 2008

Nicolas Feuillatte Palmes d'Or Rosé Intense 2008 is the 2008 release of Palmes d'Or by the house Nicolas Feuillatte, a vintage rosé Champagne.

According to the house, the wine is 100 % Pinot Noir, a rare saignée rosé made by a short maceration; Palmes d'Or Rosé Intense is released only under a vintage year, each time an exceptional one, and the house calls 2008 the coldest year of the decade, with late ripening of the grapes.

Nicolas Feuillatte is the brand of a growers’ cooperative in Chouilly: the Centre Vinicole de la Champagne, founded in 1972, bought the brand, created in 1976, in 1986.

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). Check the label for the sugar term (brut, extra brut and so on): the house does not state it on the wine's page.

Why it matters to you. 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.