Champagne Warrior brings you the latest Champagne and sparkling wine tasting notes, news, & updates.

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February 23, 2009

White Star explodes into an Imperial!

I guess it was bound to happen. A few years ago Moet started to expand and rename their NV line around Imperial. You had Brut Imperial, Brut Reserve Imperial, Brut Rose Imperial, Nectar Imperial, and Nectar Rose Imperial. At this same time, they decided to take their vintage wines in a different direction and after a false start decided on Grand Vintage Brut and Grand Vintage Brut Rose.

This made the Extra Dry White Star a bit of the odd man out as it didn’t fit in with any marketing direction. Making it more confusing was the fact that Brut Imperial has virtually disappeared from the US market over the last 5-6 years with White Star showing up everywhere as the standard Moet offering (why Moet wants to offer an Extra Dry as their standard offering is beyond me, but I am no marketing expert). Anywise, to make a long story short, White Star has been renamed Imperial to better fit into the Moet marketing direction. I would rather see Brut Imperial take a bigger presence here, but for now it is not to be. Imperial “Extra Dry” is still the standard NV Moet offering in the US.

February 12, 2009

A new member of The Champagne Warrior family has arrived!

I apologize for the lack of updates over the last few weeks, but I’ve been a bit pre-occupied by the birth of our first daughter – Sienna Catherine Baker. Our bundle of joy arrived on January 29, 2009 at 4:24 pm. She clocked in at 7 lbs. 4 oz. and 21 in.

As we all know, every new baby needs to be celebrated properly, so we broke out one of our favorite Champagnes - Rene Geoffroy’s Rose de Saignee. The bottle we opened had a little age on it as it was from the 2003 harvest and was disgorged in 2006. The age cost it a little bit of the bright fruit it showed on release, but the soft biscuit notes it had picked up more than made up for it.

This 100% Pinot Noir bubbly is currently sitting in a very nice place right now as it is bright, full of cherry and strawberry fruit and has just the right touch of creamy biscuit. A wine that continues to impress me.

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