Decanter | D 96
Published: Apr 28, 2023
Drink: 2023-2040

Fermented in small oak barrels, predominantly bought second-hand from Burgundy, in which the wine ages for up to six months. A delicious conundrum in 2014, managing to be both deeply resonant and surprisingly subtle. Beneath fragrant blackberry and baked plum fruit sits the richness of chestnut honey, rye bread and cocoa. There’s zesty brightness and cooked orchard fruit, perfectly composed, shaped with precision and energy. Six and a half years on lees. One of the top 2014s.

Closure: Cork
Alcohol: 12.50%
Body: Medium
Oak: Lightly Oaked
Grapes: 39% Chardonnay 61% Pinot Noir / Pinot Nero

The Wine Advocate | RP 95
Published: Mar 7, 2022
Drink: 2021-2045

Offering up complex aromas of crisp yellow orchard fruit, confit citrus, frangipane, walnuts, dried white flowers and subtle hints of iodine, Bollinger's 2014 Brut La Grande Année is medium to full-bodied, pillowy and vinous, with an elegantly fleshy core of fruit that's underpinned by racy acids and complemented by a pretty pinpoint mousse. Concluding with a long, chalky finish, this is a charming but precise Grande Année that's more giving and demonstrative than its immediate predecessor, the 2012, but which attains a very similar level of quality in a more challenging vintage—testimony to the serious viticulture that underpins Bollinger's contemporary excellence. 

In the 2014 vintage, Bollinger has once again produced both a Grande Année and Grande Année Rosé. The fruit of a cooler, rather rainy season punctuated by a sunny month of June, in 2014 Bollinger opted to pick late but quickly, harvesting all of their fruit in a mere 10 days; and the house's blends for Grande Année favored the crus of Verzy and Verzenay, and an unusually high proportion of Chardonnay (at 39%). The result is two very elegant, precise, giving Champagnes, with all the mid-palate intensity one expects from Bollinger but defined more by purity and precision than by power. Charming and expressive out of the gates, they're also built to age with grace. Bollinger's Denis Brunner describes the 2014 vintage as one of pure "classicism" for the house, after the more "baroque" 2012s, and that's a very concise summation of the distinctions readers will find in the glass, which I'm at a loss to better. But I'll add that the quality of these 2014s is indicative of the serious agronomy that distinguishes Bollinger's vineyards as, along with Roederer's, the best maintained of any big houses' in the region. Both wines reviewed here come warmly recommended.

Jamessuckling.com | JS 94
Published: Aug 9, 2021

Plenty of pie-crust and bread-dough aromas with lemon and apple tart. Flint as well. Medium to full body with a creamy texture and lovely elegance. It was a difficult vintage, but this came out nicely. Contrastive. Crisp at the end, even though the mid-palate is fruity. 61% pinot noir and 39% chardonnay. All fermented in barrel. 7 g/l dosage. Drink now.

Champagne-bollinger.com

Made only from Grand and Premier cru grapes, La Grande Année is the embodiment of the carefully preserved traditional expertise of Champagne Bollinger. Vinified in oak barrels, sealed with natural cork and riddled by hand, this champagne has waited patiently for 10 years in Bollinger’s chalky cellars.
Champagne Bollinger has never abandoned vinification in oak, an ancient method that helps develop aromas of great finesse. After a prolonged ageing on its lees, even today every bottle of La Grande Année is riddled and disgorged by hand.