2007 Diebolt-Vallois Champagne Blanc de Blancs 750 ml

2007 Diebolt-Vallois Blanc de Blancs Champagne: Most Recently Disgorged

On Thursday night at the Four Seasons Hotel George V, for a brief moment the City of Lights regained its luster. Hundreds of winemakers, sommeliers, and friends of the hotel congregated at Le Cinq to honor sommelier Eric Beaumard and the much-anticipated publication of a beautiful book entitled Les Vins de Ma Vie (The Wines of My Life).

The precision of Beaumard’s palate was on full display when Eric walked off with the trophy for Best Sommelier in France in 1992. Two years later, he again blew away the competition, and was named Best Sommelier in Europe in 1994. In 1999, the cellarmaster was lured to the George V, where he immediately began building one of the deepest and most carefully selected restaurant cellars in the world.

But one thing we’ve always found refreshing about M. Beaumard, in contrast to so many star sommeliers, is the way in which he’s searched out and championed the wines of small family-owned estates — often managed by people who have neither the time nor the money to dine at George V. In Les Vins de Ma Vie, Eric not only cites historic vintages of Château Petrus, Romanée-Conti, Ausone, and Château Rayas, but he also devotes a number of pages to the “little guys” — none more effusively than the brilliant 73-year-old Champenois who resides at #4 Rue Neuve in Cramant.

Jacques Diebolt called us yesterday afternoon, the day after one of the proudest moments of his career. At first, it seemed he hadn’t called to talk about Champagne or his evening in the 5th arrondissement. Instead, he spoke of the “heaviness” that continues to pervade Paris, two weeks after the night many of us will never forget. He recalled that we’d first met in the summer of 1982 — many years before Beaumard discovered the sommelier and what so many others believe to be Champagne’s most extraordinary “grower’s cellar” — and how much the world has changed over these last 33 years, in many ways not for the better.

Only after 20 minutes of reminiscing did the conversation turn back to the world of wine, to Jacques and Nadia’s celebratory evening at George V, to Eric Beaumard’s Les Vins de Ma Vie — and the finest vintage Champagne we’ve sipped in years.

If you’ve never tasted a great vintage of Jacques Diebolt’s RECENTLY disgorged vintage Champagne, you are missing out on what Beaumard considers the bubbly experience of a lifetime. Drawn off the steep, limestone hillsides above Chouilly, Cuis, Cramant, and Mesnil, the 2007 Blanc de Blanc we shared in Paris on November 18th was disgorged in September. Quite simply, that bottle was mesmerizing.

Pale gold in color. Pulsing tiny bubbles of great persistence. Magnificent, mouthwatering nose of ripe citrus, orange pith, and smoky minerality. Profoundly rich for Champagne, yet still taut and tightly wound, featuring a complex core of orchard fruits, apricot, and lemon curd, finishing with incredible length, intensity, and tension.

94 points from Antonio Galloni, who suggested this exquisite Blanc de Blancs will age gracefully for the next 15 YEARS!! $80 on release. $45 this morning — a drop-dead STEAL — for the #4 Wine of the Year. Shipping included on 4.