WTN: Champagne, Salon and more

Salon 1996
Lime/golden color. A muted and very young scent with green apples, grapefruit (the bitter stuff) and a lot of mineral.
When tasting the first (and last) impression is the high acidity, razor sharp. Beneath all the acid is a full and very young taste with apples and mineral. The aftertaste goes on and on.
It's extremely hard to get a grip on this Salon, everything is very muted and closed down. In fact I saved most of this for an hour in the glass, hoping it would open up a bit. Nothing happened.
So would I buy this? Probably not but I'd love to taste it again in 10-15 years or so.

Cristal 1999
A light almost copper color. A very nice, although not that big, nose of yellow apples, a little oxidation and after a while dry cocoa. Great stuff!
Rich taste of apples, bread and raspberries. Fresh and very creamy and round in the mouth. A nice and long finish. Imo opinion ready to drink, but a few years in the cellar could hardly hurt.

Bollinger R.D 1996
Golden color. A big lovely nose with bread, yellow plums and perhaps mushrooms, also a lot of vanilla and later on dark chocolate.
Fresh and somewhat evolved taste, just like an R.D should be like. A long finish with ripe apples and raisins. I don't know when this was disgorged, but it would surely benefit from a few years in the bottle. For the moment the taste wasn't as good as the nose promised.

Krug Grande Cuvée
Golden color, with a very flinty almost smoky nose, not very big but evolved.
A full rich taste, mature with nice acidity. Balanced and complex. Unfortunately when we got to this it had become to warm. So it's difficult to give a proper description. I enjoyed the bottle I tried a 2 months ago much better, it felt like something was missing here.

Veuve Clicquot Rosé Rare 1985
Bronze color. The fruit had almost dried out completely in this one. But you could still find beetroot, leather and truffles aromas.
Medium rich taste with some citrus you can barely feel the bubbles, just a hint on the tongue. For my taste this was almost over the hill. I tried this 2 years ago and it showed much better then, more fruit and not as evolved.

So to sum this up, I find it difficult to taste "big names" in an open tasting. It so very easy to get blinded by the labels, had I liked the Salon as much had I not known it was Salon? I would like to think so.
Anyway since I like rating stuff here's the list for this tasting, only taking to account how they performed just this day, ageing potential set a side:
1)Cristal
2)Bollinger
3)Salon
4)Krug
5)Veuve Clicquot

Great notes, thanks for sharing. IMHO, taking a Salon 96 was perhaps a case of infanticide... although I can certainly understand how difficult it is to keep one's hands off a Salon.

On the Krug, was is the new or old label? Different degorgements will sometimes produce very different bottles, at least thats been my opinion.

The new label, regarding the Salon, had it been my bottle I never would have opened it. But I'm glad I got the chance to taste it.

Good notes.

My problem with the Cristal remains as it has been for quite some time now: I just don't think it's worth $200.

Daniel, nice notes, thanks! I was pretty impressed by Cristal 1999 also - a step up IMO from the 97. Despite it sometimes being thought of only as a bling-bling champ, I have loved the ones I've tried. If the price were half of what it is, I would be buying it - the recently tasted 1986 was just so lovely an aged Champagne!

Important notes, these.

You know, I haven't had a truly smashing Bollinger R.D. or G.A. since the 1990. I wonder if the wines or different or if my tastes are different?

I briefly debated buying a bottle of the 1996 Salon when it came out, but $200 was just too much considering you can get two bottles of any number of excellent high-end Champagne for the same price.

Thanks for the TNs.

Best,
Joe

Funny you should mention the 1990, that was my first and to this day favorite RD vintage.