🍾 Pierre Gimonnet & Fils Spécial Club Grands Terroirs 2014

Pierre Gimonnet & Fils Spécial Club Grands Terroirs 2014 is the 2014 release of Spécial Club Grands Terroirs by the house Pierre Gimonnet & Fils, a vintage white Champagne in the Extra Brut style.

According to the house, a prestige cuvée since 1971 from vines over 40 years old (the oldest planted in 1911 and 1913): mainly Cramant grand cru, with Chouilly Montaigu and Cuis La Croix-Blanche.

Pierre Gimonnet & Fils is a family house from Cuis on the Côte des Blancs; according to the house, all its grapes come from its own 29.4 ha of premier and grand cru vines, and it makes almost only blanc de blancs.

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). Extra Brut on the label is an EU sugar term: 0 to 6 g of sugar per litre.

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.