The 2015 La Grande Dame is bright and nicely focused. There’s good energy driving a core of Pinot Noir fruit. Pear, white flowers, mint, white pepper and lime are nicely delineated. The 2015 is not the most complex Grande Dame I have ever tasted, but it offers plenty of immediacy with no vegetal notes or hard contours that have proven so challenging elsewhere. This is an expertly made Champagne by any measure. Dosage is 6 grams per liter. Disgorged: October, 2021. Drink 2023-2030. Published November 2023.

Since 2008, Veuve Clicquot has increased the Pinot Noir in this blend to 90% Pinot Noir and 10% Chardonnay. The 2015 Champagne La Grande Dame is a bright silver/yellow hue and is fresh and ripe on the nose, with lovely purity. Medium to full-bodied, it has a refined and rounded mousse, wonderful length, and purity with a lot of freshness. Don’t sleep on these wines. Drink over the next 15-20 years. 6 grams per liter dosage.

The warmth of the 2015 growing season shows its face in the form of golden fruit: yellow plum, ripe pineapple and dried orange rind. This builds to a mouthfilling presence, the mousse plump and billowy. What follows is quite surprising, a firmness and tautness that vibrates across the tongue, bringing a wave of green citrus and mint. An intriguing sensation, but one that promises interesting development with time.

2015 shows off the sunny fruits of the year with more grip and intensity than the 2008 and 2012. Fleshy orange, red pear, dried pineapple and chewy grapefruit peel build on a firmly structured frame, although there is a suppleness of nougat and acacia honey lurking in the middle that promises to emerge with a little patience. The bustling energy of the vintage is sitting proud for now, bitter almond and fruit skin building to an energising close despite the moderate acidity. An edition that will perform especially well at the table. Tom Hewson

10% of Chardonnay enhances the elegance of this Pinot Noir dominant cuvée to which finesse is sought from the cooler nothern facing crus of the Montagne de Reims. Fruitness is expressive and overt on the nose, a delicious melange of strawberries, dried flowers, honeydew melon and candied orange but also an austere vegetal touch. Pinot Noir's structure and power becomes even more evident on the fruit-packed palate of freshness and energy. Prickly bubbles and a lively overall impression, the wine is showing very young ffor the time being. August 2023.

The 2015 Brut La Grande Dame is turning out well today, evoking aromas of spring blossom, spring flowers, lemon oil, spices and freshly baked bread. Medium to full-bodied, elegant and seamless, it has a deep core of fruit with a lively spine of acidity and a saline, mineral finish.

Disgorged October 2021. Tasted blind. Rich nose. Big bubbles. Loose and lacy and toffee-caramel sweetness. Big and round and almost a gentle giant, but there is plenty of power and structure packed into the acidity. Grapefruit and bitter apples. Then sweet, ripe apples. Caramel creamy. Cuboid structure and cuboid in the way it fills the mouth. Yet the finish is rounded and gentle, flashing with silver and gold threads. (TC)