Champagne's Most Renowned Vineyard Site?
2000 Philipponnat Clos des Goisses
The Clos des Goisses is one of the steepest, most unique vineyards in Champagne. It also happens to produce, as Richard Juhlin says, "one of the world's foremost wines."
The Clos des Goisses is a 5.5-hectare site situated in the very hard, deep chalk of the Marne, staring perfectly south. This is one of the steepest slopes in all of Champagne, with a 30- to 45-degree gradient. During the harvest, nets are put up to catch workers who lose their footing and tumble down the hill. (See picture below.)
This vineyard is an anomaly among the otherwise gentle, rolling hills of Champagne. Indeed, the Goisses has its own very distinct microclimate - it can up to be to three degrees warmer than the rest of Champagne. Even in vintages where other vineyards struggle to ripen their grapes, the Goisses can deliver extraordinary depth and power.
This is why Peter Liem calls it, "Champagne's most renowned vineyard site."
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And the wine this vineyard produces flaunts this power. Along with Selosse's mighty creations and Taittinger's Comtes de Champagne, Philipponnat's Clos des Goisses is one of Champagne's most muscular incarnations, though the complexity of the minerality is what gives this wine such a fascination with decades and decades of age.
It is also one of the most consistent Champagnes out there, a bottle that is on my short-list to buy every year. Those who know how well this wine ages are encouraged to go as deep as you can.
Although Philipponnat is one of the more well-known négociant-manipulants in Champagne, the Clos des Goisses is their own site. Its small production, limited vintage release and elements of dark minerals, nuts and oils puts it in the company of other culty grower Champagnes like Prevost, Cedric Bouchard or Vouette et Sorbée.
The 2000 Goisses, while certainly rife with what Peter Liem calls a "broad, creamy richness typical for the vintage," is also tightly laced with firm, intensely chalky minerality and a certain tension, a certain vivaciousness that seems to take hold of the palate surprisingly, wonderfully, after first wrapping your tongue in generous, almost tropical fruit flavors.
Liem concludes that the 00 Goisses finishes "on a pinpoint, drenched in the chalky minerality characteristic of the Clos." Philipponnat uses a light dosage on the Goisses and blocks malolactic, which must have something to do with this perseverance of acidity, this final note of precision.
It also must have something to do with the longevity of Clos des Goisses, which is renowned. Richard Juhlin called a 1959 Goisses drunk in 2007 "among the greatest wines I've ever tasted." Already 10 years old and yet just barely out of the maison's cradle, this 2000 is delicious now, though its focus and liveliness ensure that it has at least two more decades of development ahead of it.
Today's very sharp pricing is good only on this small parcel - we expect a rather quick sell out. To place your order, please email us at offers@crushwineco.com or call the store at (212) 980-9463.
Ian McFadden
Director, Fine & Rare Wine
Crush Wine & Spirits
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Pre-Arrival; 2000 Clos des Goisses arrives this winter
NET | No further discount