【Wine Advocate 95 pts 】【Vinous 95 pts】【Vivino 4.3】
【Over 200 years of grape-growing experience】
【Consistently featured in the RVF and B&D French Wine Buying Guide】
【One of RVF's top 50 champagne producers】
ZTF330 - Pierre Gimonnet et Fils Cramant Grand Cru Special Club Champagne 2014
Special Price :$820/bottle
Type: Champagne
Grape Variety: 100% Chardonnay
Region: Champagne, France
ABV: 12.5%
Volume: 750ml
Palate: Remarkably fresh, with aromas of lemon and lime, complemented by a delicate chalky finish. The wine boasts rich fruit, while ripeness intertwines with lees notes, creating a light custard-like layer. This wine is youthful and vibrant, with exciting prospects for the future.
Wine Advocate 95 pts
The 2014 Brut Special Club Cramant Grand Cru derives from 14 parcels in nine different lieux-dits (above all Le Bateau), and Gimonnet feels that it's the most successful of his stand-alone single-village bottlings. Unfurling in the glass with aromas of peach, white flowers, fresh pastry and brioche, it's full-bodied, layered and textural, with a concentrated and multidimensional core, incisive acids and a long, chalky finish.
Vinous 95 pts
The 2014 Brut Spécial Club Cramant Grand Cru is another super.impressive wine in this range. lt emerges from the Bateau, Gromonts,Buissons, Bauves, Bionnes, Champ du PrévÃt and Briquettes lieux-dits.Orange confit, tangerine oil, white flowers, graphite and lightly tropicalfruit infuse the Cramant with tremendous complexity to match its powerfulpersonality. The Cramant is a rich, heady Champagne with a feeling ofstructure that leans towards the realm of Pinot. l loved it. Dosage is 4grams per liter. Disgorged: October 14, 2019
The Pierre Gimonnet family, a renowned Champagne house in France, inherits over 200 years of grape-growing experience. They are an integral part of the Champagne region, renowned for their 100% Chardonnay champagnes, sourced from the region's most prestigious Blancs. Their RM Blanc de Blancs (made from 100% white grapes, primarily Chardonnay) is a prime example.
RM (Recoltant Manipulant) is a designation given to quality-focused Champagne houses that produce and sell their own wines. Most of the "smallholder Champagnes" we hear about are RM Champagnes, and the Pierre Gimonnet family is a leader among them!
The Gimonnet family, founded in 1750, has been deeply engaged in the village of Cuis, Côte des Blancs, for centuries. Early on, they sold their grapes to renowned Champagne merchants. It wasn't until 1955, when the father of the current owner, Didier, transformed the winery into a Recoltant Manipulant (RM) capable of independent bottling, focusing on researching and producing wines based on the unique characteristics of each plot. With increasing experience, they deepened their understanding of the vineyard, improving the quality of their grapes and wines, ultimately establishing a strong reputation and standing in the region. By the time of their two descendants, Didier and Olivier, the quality and international reputation of their wines had reached unprecedented heights.
Although one of the largest growers of varietal wine in the Côte des Blancs, with 28 hectares of vineyards (and 170 hectares of wheat and barley), the Gimonnet family has always prioritized quality over quantity, using only 100% Chardonnay from prime plots in the Côte des Blancs. They are a true expert in blanc de blancs.
In their understanding of vineyards, the house shares the Burgundian principle of dividing vineyards into distinct Lieux-Dits. Of the total 28 hectares of vineyards, 14 hectares are Premier Crus in Cuis, with an additional 12 hectares of Grand Crus in Cramant and Chouilly. The majority of their wines are sourced from these Grand Crus and Premier Crus, demonstrating their potential.
Thanks to years of development, over half of the Gimonnet family's vineyards are vines over 30 years old. Furthermore, some vines at Cramant's Le Fond du Bateau (planted in 1911) and Buisson (planted in 1913) are over 100 years old.
Due to its terroir, the Champagne region has extremely high standards for vintages, hence the distinction between vintage and non-vintage champagnes. Didier Gimonnet firmly believes in quality above all else, preferring to blend Grand Cru and Premier Cru vineyards to elevate overall quality while maintaining a reasonable price. If the quality of the grapes harvested that year doesn't meet the house's expectations, they will abandon the production of vintage champagne entirely, a move that requires tremendous courage and exceptional craftsmanship.
Perhaps it is this uncompromising pursuit of perfection that has enabled Pierre Gimonnet to stand out among "smallholder Champagnes" and has become a cultural legacy the house is proud of. 95% of their grapes are Chardonnay. Some say Pierre Gimonnet represents the style of the northern Côte des Blancs, much as Pierre Peters represents the southern.
Didier's winemaking philosophy is easy to understand: He treats parcels of different styles separately, conducting separate malolactic fermentations in stainless steel tanks of varying sizes. This allows him to clearly identify the styles corresponding to different terroirs. Later, to create any desired style, he simply blends the juice from a specific cuvée based on experience. This opens up endless possibilities without completely erasing the characteristics of the terroir. To me, it's like a painter applying different pigments to a canvas.
Another unique aspect is that Didier prefers to store his base wines in large bottles rather than stainless steel tanks. Each year, he uses approximately 60% to 70% of the base wine from recent vintages for his NV blend. He believes this method maximizes the wine's freshness and flavor, as well as its aging potential. Winemaking is an art, and every winemaker is an artist with unconstrained imagination.
The Special Club is the house's premium line, launched in 1971. Every step of the process is meticulously crafted. The average vine age is over 40 years, with the earliest vines dating back to 1911 and 1913. The Chardonnay comes primarily from the Grand Cru village of Cramant, while grapes from Chouilly and Cuis add a touch of freshness. This champagne exudes the finesse and elegance of a truly exceptional champagne.
