We have received many delightful gifts on the birth of our son a few weeks ago, one of which is a bottle of Moet & Chandon 2004. I asked the giver whether we should cellar it until our little one is 18, or drink it now, and he said we can do what we like with it but he isn’t a champagne expert. A cursory Google search suggested drinking it now would be nice, but there was no guidance on cellaring it except that good vintages of champagne can benefit from bottle ageing for up to 10 years - which this one has had, of course.
I’m not a wine or champagne expert either, beyond knowing that with most vintage wines, there is usually a recommended period for drinking it at its best. I like the idea of laying this bottle down until the nipper’s 18th birthday, but it would be a shame if this meant we were missing out on a real treat now in favour of something that will have gone off by then.
So I turn to the drinkers of the SDMB for advice. What should we do?
I don’t have any way to reliably cellar wine, so I’d drink it now. I think the aging process is not complicated, but providing the right environmental factors is critical and difficult for the average Joe to achieve.
BTW, congrats!
We drank a bottle of Tattinger 1986 last year. It had been cellared at the vineyard in ideal conditions. It was not good.
I’d drink your bottle now.
Do not drink a 28-year-old bottle of champagne. Drink it yesterday.
First off, I am not an expert in Champagne. All I’m relating are my personal experiences with Champagne and what I remember reading from true experts like Tom Stevenson. From those, I think that you certainly can cellar some Champagnes for 25 years plus, and have them improve after the experience, but you need a couple of things first.
- The storage has to be ideal. If you have to ask what that is, you probably don’t have it. The rule of thumb is that old, disgorged Champagnes are delicate, even comparing them to only other old wines. One reason is that they’ve low levels of residual sugar, and practically none of the anthocyanins that help red wine fight off oxidation. OTOH, they usually have high acid, which helps.
Another is that even with proper storage, you’re really pushing it taking most Champagnes, even vintage-designated Champagne, past 10-15 years. They may last, but probably won’t improve.
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Your palate has to like older Champagne as opposed to newer. IMLE with older Champagne, the fizziness is much less, the color is darker, the flavors are more oxidized (think nutty, butterscotch-y), and the aromas are much more diverse. It tastes less crisp than newer champagne. Good old Champagnes aren’t better than good new Champagnes; they’re not worse than new ones: they’re just different tastes.
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The wine has to be built to survive and develop for that period of time. Usually this means one of the prestige cuvees a house will put out, or at the least, a bottle of vintage-labeled Champagne. Most non-vintage Champagnes will benefit though from a few months to a few years of bottle aging after disgorgement.
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The vintage has to be rich enough to allow making a wine with enough intensity that will permit it to evolve over the 25 years or so you’re talking about. Take wine from a meh vintage, age it for 25 years, and you’re going to get worse-than-meh wine. Aging, by itself, doesn’t improve wine. In fact, it robs wine of the inherent freshness and fruitiness that are the reasons we drink probably (90%+, IMHO) most wines. It’s just that some wines, like vintage Port, traditionally-styled Barolo, need a bit of age to show their best.
Thankfully, 2004 looks like it was a pretty good vintage in Champagne, at least according to wine experts, Robert Parker and Tom Stevenson. Parker’s expert gave the vintage a “90T”, by which s/he meant that the vintage as a whole in that region was “excellent to outstanding”, and that the vintage was tannic (if appropriate) or otherwise hard and slow to mature. Stevenson called the vintage, "
Sounds good so far.
So, if you’ve great storage, prefer the taste of old Champagne, and think you’ve a bottle that Moet intended to be able to last for 30 years, then why not? I’ve had a bottle of 21 year old Krug that was amazing. Those are definitely the exceptions to the rule though. I think, looking at the vintage chart from Robert Parker, that there are many better candidates for what you want: Barolo/Barbaresco, Tuscan red wines in general (Brunello, the “Super-Tuscans”), Spain’s Rioja/Ribera del Duero, Australia’s Barossa (like Grange Hermitage). White Burgundy and German Riesling if you’re feeling frisky. Given good storage, Grange and the Northern Italian wines should be able to do 30 years standing on their head.
But I’d drink the Moet now, if I were you.
Trust me, there will be plenty of times when you’ll need that drink before the kid turns 18. If you have to ask, the time hasn’t come yet…
This. Dad is a champagne connoisseur and even he admits that aging rarely works out well.
Moët & Chandon is a “nice” champagne, but It is hardly a collectible champagne. They produce it large in large quantities.
Don’t store it in a pretty cabinet.
Honestly, Leaffan, it kind of pisses me off when people respond to legitimate questions with lame, completely predictable jokes that I was just about to post.
Just like Marie Antoinette?
Moving from IMHO to Cafe Society.
I don’t recall those lyrics.
Thanks for all the replies - including the amusingly unhelpful ones, but especially the relevant ones. On balance, seems like a strong consensus in favour of drinking it sooner rather than later, for good reason. I just thought it might be a cool idea to cellar it until he was legally allowed to drink as he was the reason for the gift, and from your responses that might just work (I have a basement that is dark, dry, and at a fairly stable, cool temperature - but I’m not certain if that actually represents ideal conditions, which puts me in the “have to ask” category). I also like the sound of the description of an aged Champagne, as I find most sparkling wine rather too dry and fizzy for my taste. But as has been pointed out, this bottle is not particularly special and probably not designed for that. So we will find an appropriate occasion to consume it soon!
Now, on to my next thread about what to do with perfume from Paris, though the wife says she couldn’t care less…
Keep the champers for Christmas or other celebration and buy a bottle of whiskey, to be opened in 21 years by your son. There’s a chance the whiskey won’t keep but it’s much smaller than the champagne not doing so.