Champagne

Duval-Leroy makes Femme de Champagne only in years it considers exceptional, and 2002 is widely held to be the Champagne vintage of its decade.

Blended exclusively from reserve wines, which is unusual and gives maturity and toast without losing the house's citrus freshness.

Abelé 1757 is the fifth oldest house in Champagne and keeps production deliberately tiny, so this cuvée rarely travels far.

Made by the addition method with 15% still Pinot Noir, which gives real red-fruit flavour rather than colour alone.

Palmer & Co only makes this cuvée in a vintage it rates highly, and every grape comes from Premier and Grand Cru vineyards in the Montagne de Reims.

A grower Champagne from a single Premier Cru village, farmed organically and ploughed by horse, at the price the large houses ask for a b...

Most rosé Champagne takes its colour from a little red wine added at blending.

Aged three times longer than the appellation requires, which buys the fine, persistent mousse and the depth the price suggests.

The benchmark cuvée from the oldest wine house in Champagne, and the clearest statement of the no-malolactic house style: rich and volumi...

All Pinot Noir from Grand Cru villages in the Montagne de Reims, which is where the grape carries the most weight and structure in Champagne.

A family grower house working eleven hectares of chalk, with three years on the lees — well beyond the minimum — behind a Pinot-led blend.

Seven years in the chalk cellars is well beyond what most vintage Champagne is given, and it shows in the gingerbread and brioche depth s...

One of the last independent family houses in Champagne, and the reserve-heavy blend shows it: 40% reserve wine drawn across roughly 15 crus.

Gosset blocks malolactic conversion across the range, which is why an Extra Brut here reads precise rather than austere.