🍾 Veuve Clicquot Vintage Brut 2012

Veuve Clicquot Vintage Brut 2012 is the 2012 release of Vintage Brut by the house Veuve Clicquot, a vintage white Champagne in the Brut style.

According to the house, this is its 66th vintage; the grapes come only from Grands and Premiers Crus; 11 % of the wines were aged in large oak casks (foudres); the dosage is 8 g/l.

The house Veuve Clicquot was founded in 1772 in Reims by Philippe Clicquot. According to the house, Madame Clicquot created the first known vintage Champagne in 1810 and the first known blended rosé Champagne in 1818.

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. 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.