Light, bright gold with an energetic bead. Precise lemon zest and orange aromas are complemented by deeper notes of pear skin, honey, almond and chamomile, with a subtle mineral quality gaining strength with air. Youthful and surprisingly lithe for a wine from this house, with spicy citrus and orchard fruit flavors joined by smoky minerality and nuttiness on the back end. The honey note returns on the long, spicy sappy finish. I like this wine's balance and cut.

The 2000 Brut La Grande Annee is a ripe, open wine bursting with generous, expansive fruit. Smoke, minerals, pastry crust and flowers add complexity to the radiant fruit. The Grande Annee reveals gorgeous depth and a multi-dimensional, kaleidoscopic personality that screams of pure breed. The 2000 will be a fascinating vintage to follow. I am not sure it has the freshness to be an extremely long-lived wine, but it does a fabulous job in capturing the Bollinger house style. The 2000 Grande Annee is 63% Pinot Noir, 37% Chardonnay of which 76% is Grand Cru and 24% is Premier Cru. This is Lot L911736. Disgorged January 19, 2009. Anticipated maturity: 2010-2020. This is an exceptional set of new wines from Bollinger, one of Champagne’s historic houses. From top to bottom, there isn’t anything Bollinger isn’t doing well these days. I recently sat down with Chef de Caves Matthieu Kaufmann to taste through a range of the house’s 2009s. Readers will find notes on that tasting on www.erobertparker.com One of the distinguishing features of the Bollinger style is the aging of reserve wines in magnum under cork (not crown seal), a painstaking labor of love. Bollinger also has some of the most informative back labels among the region’s larger producers. It would be great to see Krug, Moet & Chandon, Roederer, Taittinger, Veuve Cliquot and a number of the region’s big houses follow suit. Importer: Terlato Wines International, Lake Bluff, IL; tel. (847) 604-8900