August 2024
CHAMPAGNE BOLLINGER
PN VZ 19 N/V
- 94 points -
The latest rendition of Bollinger's blended blanc de noirs bottling is the NV Brut Blanc de Noirs PN VZ19; it is based on the 2019 vintage, which represents 52% of the blend, and the village of Verzenay, which accounts for the origin of 40% of this bottling's components. 2019 is complemented by fully 48% reserve wines, and above all, fully a quarter derives from 2009; and it has the tension of Verzenay by Aÿ, Avenay-Val-d'Or, Tauxières and Mutigny. If all that sounds complicated, the wine's appeal is easier to see, as it offers up a demonstrative bouquet of yellow stone fruit, mandarin and praline, followed by a medium to full-bodied, pure and pillowy palate that's charming, even giving, but also attractively racy, concluding with a saline finish. It was disgorged with six grams per liter dosage. This doesn't tower above its 2018-base counterpart (perhaps unsurprisingly, as the percentage of reserve wines in this bottling is so high), but it does seem to be marginally the strongest iteration of this cuvée to date.
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The Wine Advocate was a bi-monthly publication and Robert Parker Wine Advocate continues this tradition, although articles and reviews are now published every week. The main goal is to publish regionally focused reports, which mainly offer wine reviews of new wine releases, but they also produce important vintage retrospectives and occasionally single-label verticals and producer profiles. Since 2019, Robert Parker Wine Advocate has been a wholly owned subsidiary of the Michelin Group.