2004 Champagne Gosset, Célébris, Extra Brut

The 2005 is 55% Chardonnay from Chouilly, Cramant and Le Mesnil sur Oger) and 45% Pinot Noir from Aÿ, Bouzy and Verzy).

Gosset's 2004 Extra Brut Celebris is a powerful, bracing wine. Pinot Noir-infused red stone fruits, dried leaves, mint, herbs, spice notes, and low dosage give the wine its distinctive combination of power, breadth, and raciness. The 2004 needs a bit of time for the bouquet to open up, but the wine is quite expressive when they do. Now 12 years after the vintage, the 2004 Celebris offers a good bit of aromatic and flavour intensity, with slightly mature notes typical for a wine of this age. Chamomile, honey and lightly roasted almond are some nuances that linger through to the creamy, expansive finish.

Drink 2016 - 2026

A famously large harvest and one where the inverse relationship between quantity and quality did not really hold sway, as this terrific Célébris so eloquently demonstrates. In 2021, this wine has enjoyed seven years of post-disgorgement ageing and appears to have benefited from the experience by shunning any apparition of leafy seniority and by maintaining a crisp, honeyed, stone fruit freshness, vinous complexity after that and a cerebral, slightly salty finish which is beautifully rendered.

Drink 2022 - 2027

Tasted in August 2018 from lot L6125111 with five grams per litre dosage.

The 2004 Celebris Vintage Extra-Brut blends 55% Chardonnay from Chouilly, Cramant and Le Mesnil-sur-Oger with 45% Pinot Noir from Aÿ, Bouzy and Verzy. Intensely golden-yellow in colour, the reductive yet dense and immensely aromatic bouquet reveals herbal/floral and mineral rather than fruity aromas. There are flavours from ancient, very small pear varieties from the empty glass. Full-bodied, fresh and elegant, this is a round and well-structured 2004 whose finish is still a bit dryish. Minty flavours are displayed in the fresh and evolved but also still) discreet aftertaste.