Clos des Goisses, Brut, 2004
The flavour profile of the 2009 is wonderfully pure - the vintage was one of the healthiest harvests on record – while structurally this is as regal as you’d expect from a great Clos des Goisses. It is impeccably balanced. The pure chalk soils seems particularly present in the 2009, bringing control and freshness to the keenly rendered flavours of red and black berry fruit. With time these should gently evolve into cacao, orange, chocolate - ripe flavours but without the intrusion of botrytis or excessive glycerol. Full and powerful but with an ever present spine of acidity and minerality, the wine reminds Charles Philipponnat of their 1989; a ripe, sunny vintage with little ‘fat’ – though of course the 2009 will have benefited from far more precise winemaking. “Over the past 18 years we’ve made many improvements to our winemaking process. As a result the wines we are making these days are more precise, they have more freshness and more pixels than they used to have in the past. And of course, 2009 is a ripe vintage but it also has surprising freshness. More than the 1989 had at the time. We’ve achieved this by cutting out any oxidation in the winemaking, by using smaller casks, using lower dosage, systematising the non-malo-lactic character – all elements that help to preserve the freshness and purity inherently found our steep, south facing pure chalk terroir.” Charles Philipponnat.
critic reviews
The 2004 Clos des Goisses is dense and powerful in the glass, with all of the pure, unbridled energy that has always been such a signature here. Hints of lemon peel, mint, spice and crushed rocks emerge with time in the glass, but, despite its considerable beauty and unquestioned pedigree, the 2004 is frankly years away from delivering the full Clos des Goisses experience. Disgorged February 2013.
From their iconic steep, south-facing, riverside vineyard in Mareuil-sur-Ay - acquired in 1935 - Philipponnat's strikingly beautiful 2004 Brut Clos des Goisses betrays no suggestion of alcoholic weight or opacity such as one might associate with an especially warm, fast-ripening vineyard. On the contrary, this is a bottling that combines silken feel with delicacy, refreshment, and utmost transparency to nuance. Chamomile, mint and lily-of-the-valley don't just turn heads from the rim of the glass; they waft through this wine's entire palate performance, against a greenhouse-like background of diverse if elusive flowering and leafing things. Salivary gland-tugging salinity and hints of chalk suffuse a fruit matrix of white peach, lime, red raspberry and red currant whose juicy, subtly crunchy expressions put me a bit in mind of certain supreme Nahe Rieslings. This site's reflection in the Marne River is itself iconic, but its reflection in your glass will prove kaleidoscopically spellbinding. That effect persisted during the four days I had the pleasure of following this 2004, and I suspect that subsequent bottles will prove worth following for at least a decade. The house of Philipponnat - which owns 44 prime acres in and around Mareuil-sur-Ay, its base of operations ever since having completed a new press house and cellar there in 2004 - is headed by Charles Philipponat, although it's owned by the group that controls Champagne Bruno Paillard Philipponnat. This house's Clos des Goisses estate vineyard is justly renowned, but on the occasion of my recent tasting, their extra brut "1522" - named for the year in which the first Philipponnat began farming vines, in Ay - proved almost as compelling. Importer: The Rare Wine Company, Sonoma, CA; tel. (800) 999-4342