- Made from the most famous 'Clos' in champagne
- A pinot noir specialist highlighting the best of this clos in the warm '09 harvest
- Pair with anything truffled, smoked or cured. Have it in a big glass!
For its lofty credentials (and price to match), Clos des Goisses should consistently rank in the highest echelons of Champagne. If sheer, booming power were the only criterion, it would have no equal.
The house describes it as a ‘big, Burgundian style of champagne!’ To me, its thumping ripeness can be alarming, creating disconcerting phenolic coarseness, though in the more elegant vintages it finds an alluring harmony. ‘2009 was a sunny solar vintage,’ Charles Philipponnat recalls, ‘with beautiful fruit much lower in acidity than 2006 and 2007, but the freshness is there thanks to the minerality.
It reminds me of the 1989, but in the end it will be better than 1989 because our winemaking now is cleaner and better than it was then.’ Philipponnat is astute in rolling out its barrels to suit the season, pulling back from 73–75% oak fermentation in 2007 and 2008 to a restrained 37% in the presence of the 2009 harvest.
With a gold tint to its medium straw hue, the grand power and volume of this ripe harvest make for a cuvée of thundering proportions. Generous, mature yellow fruits jostle with the roast nut character of barrel fermentation.
This warm season furnished low levels of gentle malic acidity, hence its definition owes more to the fine chalk minerality of the site. It’s inimitable Clos des Goisses of other-worldly dimensions.
Technical details
39% chardonnay, 61% pinot noir; 37% fermented and aged in oak barrels; no malolactic fermentation; aged 9 years on lees; 4.25g/L dosage; 19,805 bottles
