The title of Prestige Cuvee really does speak for itself.
These are the finest champagnes that a particular Champagne House has to offer.
From the Grandes Marques, to the Growers, many different champagne houses
produce prestige cuvees as the best expression of their style.
So Bjorn, what is a prestige cuvee?
So when we're talking about production of champagne, you know, the portfolio of a
Grower or a
Grand Marque is quite big, so they make their non-vintage champagne
You have vintage champagne, you have rose non-vintage,
you have vintage rose
And now and then everything is there, the top 5% of the quality ladder,
that is cuvee prestige.
It started out as the best vintages. And then they change a little bit again
Krug, the icon with their Grand cuvee started
in 1850 to be the first prestigious cuvee.
But the most known is the biggest brand in the wine industry actually,
which is Dom Perignon. The marketing manager of
Moet et Chandon he was thinking okay how can we
show them the quality that we have? Because in those days,
of course the name Moet et Chandon was well known,
but you put the vintage on the label. How could they
show that this was of super premium quality?
So they thought, why don't we bring in
another shape of a bottle that resembles the bottle from the
1700's, so you know that club shaped
bottle of the other prestigous cuvees like
Comte de Champagne for instance and Grande Siecle
from Laurent Perrier. So in 1935 they
release the 1921 vintage. So that was the
first launch of the commercial cuvee prestige. Now
even very small producers like a
Grower that maybe made only two wines
also have a cuvee prestige to show what is their real best.
So when it comes to cuvee prestige, It's up to each and every producer
what they put into that word actually. So it can
be a selection of their best vineyards, it can be a single vineyard,
it can be a part of a vineyard where they have their oldest vines,
it can be a blend of their best barrels.
So in short, the crème de la crème, that is cuvee prestige.
So what makes prestige cuvee so different?
In this case I would say because the selection
is done very carefully, so it's
the best raw material that this producer has to offer.
Attention to details is meticulous.
So you have better concentration
More marked acidity. Of course when they
release the wine on the market it's ready to drink.
It's often about 10 to 12 years of age.
For me, when it reaches the
peak of 20 years, that the first peak, and it stays there
for 20 to 30 years. So we're talking about vintage champagne,
it's a champagne that really can mature and develop these
secondary and tertiary aromas. And this
is the same, but even more concentrated
and even more refined. So it's the absolute
skill of the producer shown in the cuvee prestige.
When it comes to the crystal
clear acidity, the depth of the fruit,
the complexity, these astonishing
aromas that develop over time that makes it, for me,
the cheapest, fine wine in the world
but also one of the greatest wines in the world, just because of that.
So when it comes to sourcing of the grapes,
of course there is no set rules on how to do this
because all the vineyards are very different. But take for instance
you want to make cuvee prestige from one vineyard
so you have a different age of the vines and they will have different
qualities. Because one part of the vineyard may not be
as mature because the vine is only 10 years old.
But you have the core of the vineyard may be 50-60 years old,
produces very little fruit, but of really superior quality.
So that could be one way of sourcing grapes
for your cuvee prestige. But of course, you come to a point
when the vine is so old it doesn't produce that much of
grapes so from a commercial point of view,
it's not sensible, you need to blend it
with other grapes. But maybe not those younger vines in the same vineyard,
but then you bring in grapes of the same maturity level,
but from another vineyard. So again,
that liquid puzzle is working on this very high quality level.
So in terms of
taste when it comes to cuvee prestige, it's a little bit more
of everything, that's what the thing is. Not necessarily
higher acidity, but the acidity is there,
but it gives the possibility of the wine to mature longer
So we're talking about a mature, and especially a very complex wine
over time. That's the thing with cuvee prestige.
Some are really beautiful drinking young, like a DP,
you can drink it straight up, 10 years of age or 12 years of age
But some take 20 or 30 years to really
reach the peak. But who am I to say?
That's really personal opinion how do you like your wine.
Prestige Cuvees are usually the greatest
expression of any given producer’s wines and are the
ultimate benchmark for judging their skills and expertise.
Get to know your favourite producers’ prestige cuvees
to truly appreciate their winemaking abilities.