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Veuve Clicquot Vertical Limit

Written By: Brian Freedman on Thursday, November 15, 2007

Priceless vintages safely stored with the help of Porsche Design Studio.

Veuve Clicquot, one of the grandest, most highly respected Champagne houses in a region with no shortage of venerable producers, is about to change the way you look at vintage bubbly.

In honor of the new Vertical Limit cellar created by Porsche Design in partnership with Veuve Clicquot, twelve of the finest vintage Champagnes have been specially disgorged. And as some of these wines are from legendary harvests more than half a century old, they represent a truly unique event in the history of wine.

"This is an unprecedented opportunity to taste older, mature vintage Champagnes that have been stored in absolutely ideal conditions," said Charles Curtis, Master of Wine and head of wine education for Moet Hennessey. "You can store Champagne in your cellar at home and have very good results, but nothing beats aging it at the winery."

Anyone who has held onto vintage bottles of Champagne in their home cellar for too long knows the heartbreak that results from fine old bottles that just could not handle the stress of slightly imperfect conditions: What should have been a dream experience ends up more like a nightmare, the most delicate nuances of the wine destroyed by oxygen, heat, or something even worst.

But these bottles in the Vertical Limit cellars - which include the twelve greatest vintages between 1955 and 1990 - have been resting in the crayeres beneath Champagne since they were bottled, thereby guaranteeing their quality.

And what quality it will be: They were all disgorged just for the Vertical Limit project, and the decades of rest that the wine was treated to on it lees means that they will possess flavors and aromas that go far deeper, and are far richer, than even the most ardent connoisseur has likely tasted before.

"Champagne that matures there, because it ages so slowly and at such a low temperature... develops amazing concentration and complexity," Curtis said.

It also develops a certain caché: These magnums, after all, are just being released for the Vertical Limit project. They're not available on wine-store shelves.

"The rarity of those wines is incredible," Curtis continued. "And the fact that they released them for this project really says a lot."

It says that Veuve Clicquot truly understands the importance of its own past in the overall history of the Champagne region, and is willing to wait 50 years or more for a bottle to be ready if that's what it takes.

And though most wine lovers will not have the chance to taste these bottles, all hope is not lost: Veuve Clicquot, through its Rare Vintages program, is releasing selected late-disgorged bottlings, which will give the wine-loving public the rare opportunity to experience wines of not only great vintage, but also impeccable provenance.

That's cause for celebration, and perhaps a bottle of bubbly. And with only 15 of these being produced at $70,000 a pop - it's the perfect present for the man who has everything.

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