Lanson 2008, a great example of an important vintage

The 2008 harvest in Champagne is proving to be a splendid vintage thanks to wines like this one. The year continues to attract attention because the wines are coming out on the market at different times depending on choices and traditions of the various Maisons. Lanson Gold Label is a Champagne of great quality and can be surprising in less promising years, like 2005, and achieve excellence with vintages like this 2008. The wine is almost an equal blend of Pinot Noir and Champagne from only Grand Cru villages including Bouzy, Verzenay, Avize, Le-Mesnil and Trépail. This Champagne is renowned for the capacity of its best vintages to age long and for this reason the Maison has created a Vintage Collection line which is disgorged late. The latest to reach the market was an extraordinary 1998 that was presented at Vinitaly this year.

Gold Label is an exquisitely made Champagne, one that improves with age and not just due to bottle aging. In April 2014, Doctor Winewrote about the 2004 vintage that was made when the grapes used were Chardonnay from Avize, Cramant, Oger and Le Mesnil sur Oger while the Pinot Noir was from Ay, Verzenay, Verzy and Bouzy. When the Maison changed hands and became part of the BCC group, Lanson was again buying its own grapes and it was thanks to the savoir faire of Jean-Paul Gandon, 43 years with Lanson and its chef de caves starting in 1982 (he passed the helm to Hervé Dantan in 2015), that the Maison’s style was maintained despite the different origin of the grapes. And it is thanks to the experience and great sensibility of the chef de caves that Gold Label not only upheld its high level of quality but, with vintages like 2008, confirmed its position as a distinctive Champagne with a precise stylistic identity, while remaining true to a particular tradition established by the Maison’s over 250 years of history.