Pommery | Brut Rose – NV

Detailed Description

On the nose, fresh notes of small red berries, carrying through on a fresh and lively palate. Enjoy with shellfish, poultry and red fruits desserts.

Reviews:

• Wine Spectator: Fresh and floral, this is almost zesty on the palate, with a fine and lively, lacy bead and well-meshed flavors of crushed raspberry, blanched almond, candied ginger and blood orange peel.

• James Suckling: A strikingly pale rosé Champagne with a color reminiscent of the coolest still Provence rosé wines. Overflowing with strawberry and raspberry aromas, very juicy and bright on the medium-bodied palate, the finish as charming as it is clean, thanks to the lively mousse. A very similar blend to the white Brut Royal, but with a dash of red wine added for color and extra body.

Producer Information

Pommery is a Champagne house located in Reims and claims to be the inventor of the Brut style of Champagne so popular today. It’s early history is synonymous with Jeanne-Alexandrine Louise Pommery (commonly refered to as Louise Pommery), who guided the house through its early beginnings to substantial growth in the mid 19th Century. History: Although the Champagne house was nominally founded in 1856 by Alexandre Louis Pommery and Narcisse Greno, the outlines of the operation are sketched in 1836 when Greno takes control of a Champagne négociant business titled Dubois-Gosset (or Gossart, according to some sources), which subsequently becomes Dubois & Greno. Following the death of Dubois in 1839, Greno finds another partner and the firm’s name is changed again, this time to Wibert & Greno. Wilbert pulls out of the business 18 years later and Greno is joined by wool merchant, Alexandre Pommery. On the death of her husband two years later in 1858, Louise Pommery takes her husband’s place and shepherds the company through a period of growth and prosperity. Greno’s role, if any, in the early stages is unknown, although it is clear Pommery is guiding light of the business and over the next few decades becomes one of the region’s largest brands. “[She] possessed, to the highest degree, a taste for risk and for audacious problem-solving,” her grandson, Melchior de Polignac, said of her. In 1866, the company name is changed to Veuve Pommery & Fils (Widow Pommery & Son), to mark Pommery’s control and her son’s entrance into the business. Nonetheless, the business maintains the “Pommery & Greno” title well into the 20th Century. In 1868, Pommery acquires a 50-hectare (120 acre) domain in Reims, dotted by ancient Roman chalk-pits and mines. Work begins to connect the underground galleries into a vast cellar complex, 18km (11 miles) long, with space for aging and storing more than 20 million bottles of Champagne. The house also claims to be the creators of the first Brut champagne – the 1874 vintage of Pommery Nature. Until then, Champagne was higher in sugar and alcohol to offset high acidities, but Pommery changed its process to appeal to English tastes, which ran to drier wines. Madame Pommery died in Chigny (later named Chigny-les-Roses, after the widow’s fondness for the flowers), just south of Reims, in 1890. She was reportedly the first French woman to be given a state funeral. On her death, the Champagne house passed into the hands of the Polignac family (Pommery’s daughter, also named Louise, had married the Marquis de Polignac) which guided it through the beginnings of the the 20th Century. By the latter half of the Century, Pommery had gone through numerous changes in ownership, including Xavier Gardinier (who went on to acquire Château Phelan-Ségur in Bordeaux) and LVMH (from 1991 to 2002). In 2002, the house was acquired by the Vranken Monopole group, although the vineyards remained with LVMH. Both parties have a supply agreement centered around the grand cru vineyards.