2007 R.D.

The 2007 R.D. is the latest release from Bollinger. General Manager Charles-Armand de Belenet and Deputy Cellar Master Denis Bunner presented it alongside two mystery wines that arrived with very specific instructions about how to open the bottles. Not your everyday tasting. The mystery wines were obviously much older. I made sure not to look at the corks, and just focused on what was in the glass. I thought the two wines were different vintages, but they turned out to be two disgorgements of the 1976 R.D. one from 2020, the other from 2014 chosen to highlight how Champagne responds to disgorgement and time. It is also always interesting to compare a current vintage with an older year, although that is hard when three decades exist between them. Nineteen seventy-six was a very hot year that produced rich, dense Champagnes, the best of which remain compelling. The 1970s was the last decade when vines were older and yields were naturally lower, before the arrival of clones designed to maximize yields in the 1980s. More than anything, the two 1976s showed the way Champagne very graciously moves from one stage of its life to another, hopefully as we do.