In August, Bollinger R.D. is launched. 2008 again on the Swedish market, this time with a new disgorging. The first launch took place in June last year and now the same vintage is released with even longer storage on the lees, which gives an even more powerful and complex wine. [read the full champagne story]
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
R.D. according to Bollinger
An old vintage, with a very low dosage, that has been disgorged just prior to release: R.D. is a wine that has always been ahead of its time and embodies Madame Bollinger’s visionary spirit. The combination of the long wait during the ageing process and the immediacy of disgorgement enables the harmonious contrast between the different temporalities of R.D.Today, Bollinger R.D. 2008 is lively and exceptionally complex, taking us on a journey outside time. Hazelnuts, with all their freshness and generosity, are the perfect ingredient to echo a wine of such splendour.
‘The 2008 vintage is characterised by its remarkable precision and opulence’
The assembly of this 2008 vintage is composed of 71% Pinot Noir and 29% Chardonnay. A total of 18 crus can be find in the blending, mostly Aÿ and Verzenay for Pinot Noir and Le Mesnil-sur-Oger and Cramant for Chardonnay. The fermentation is entirely in oak barrels. Bollinger R.D. is sold just a few months after being disgorged, with a very low dosage known as “extra brut”, at just 3 grams per litre. The recent disgorgement guarantees the remarkable freshness of the wine.
This year’s releases include standard bottlings disgorged in October 2023 and magnum bottlings disgorged in November 2023 where the extended aging period of another year adds added complexity to an already exceptional vintage. Bollinger R.D. represents the boldness of Madame Bollinger – an old vintage released shortly after its disgorging with a very low dosage. With Bollinger R.D. In 2008, the champagne house pays tribute to its roots and creates a vintage with unique expression and history in mind.
Bollinger R.D. 2008 – Bold and Magnificent
Bollinger R.D. The 2008 is lively and exceptionally complex with delicate aromas of marzipan, dried apricots, honey and toasted breadcrumbs combined with citrus notes such as bergamot and lime. A generous mousse is followed by a rich taste of acacia honey, hazelnuts, dried fruits and clear saltiness with great elegance and an endless aftertaste. For Bollinger R.D. In 2008, hazelnuts from Piedmont in Italy have been selected by the champagne house as the perfect combination as they reflect R.D. The greatness of 2008 in a perfect way with its balance between freshness, richness of taste and long aftertaste.
Bollinger R.D. The 2008 consists of 71% Pinot Noir and 29% Chardonnay from 18 different Grands and Premiers Crus, mainly from Ay, Verzenay, Le Mesnil-sur-Oger and Cramant. One of the artisanal techniques that Champagne Bollinger uses is that vinification takes place in oak barrels that are around 20 years old. Through this, complex aromas develop in the wine, where micro-oxygenation gives an extraordinary potential for future storage. The house has 4,000 barrels in its possession and all of these are maintained in the Champagne Bollinger Cooperage, where Bollinger is the only champagne house with a full-time cooper. At Champagne Bollinger, only the best vintages become a Bollinger R.D. and vintage 2008 is characterized by its remarkable precision and energy.
“Madame Bollinger has always made it her mission to preserve the exceptional taste and quality of her wines, which are the result of several generations of experience and constant innovation. R.D. is the embodiment of this ambition and, true to her vision, each new vintage brings the house releases its own new taste experience for lovers of great wines. The contrast between the freshness of the wine and the generous flavor profile of the hazelnut allows Bollinger R.D. to fully express its aromas and reveal itself in all its glory.” says Charles-Armand de Belenet, CEO of Champagne Bollinger.
An exceptional vintage
2008 was a year of unsettled weather where cool spring temperatures persisted well into summer. Finally, both sun and heat returned in time for the harvest. It was the diversity of the harvest that came to characterize the 2008 wine year, the Champagne region had to deal with a significant difference between grape varieties, crus and vineyards. July and August were stormy and cloudy, followed by ideal conditions that allowed Bollinger to start harvesting in September with an optimum degree of ripeness of 9.8 and acidity of 8.5g/l. Despite the varying weather conditions, Maison Bollinger, thanks to its knowledge and expertise, was able to keep the grapes in excellent condition, making 2008 an exceptional year characterized by a bountiful harvest of Pinot Noir and magnificent botrytis-free grapes.
Champagne – Aÿ – mid 1960s
To understand Bollinger R.D. need we look back to the mid-60s in Champagne. During this time when many other champagne houses focused on developing unusual bottle shapes, Champagne Bollinger chose to concretize its signature style. Although older vintages were not in fashion then, Madame Bollinger was as bold as ever. True to her pioneering spirit, she had a bold idea to market the 1952 vintage as freshly disgorged and dosed as Extra Brut. The vision was clear; Bollinger’s absolute prestige lay in the wine, not in the vessel.
Madame Bollinger created a completely unique style and taste where the aromatic intensity of the best vintages was contrasted with a freshness. A freshness that is the result of the grapes’ natural acidity at harvest, which is enhanced by the Extra Brut dosage. Her work was a revolution that would have a lasting impact on Bollinger’s style as well as the entire champagne world. Bollinger R.D. (Recently Disgorged) was first launched in 1967, then with a 1952 vintage, and was the first in Champagne to specify a disgorging date on the label.
Bollinger R.D. 2008 | 750 ml | Launch August 16 600 bottles, No. 90264, SEK 3,499
Bollinger R.D. 2008 | Magnum | Web launch August 15 47 bottles, No. 90264, SEK 6,999
Tasting note by Champagne Club by Richard Juhlin
97(97)p
When I put my nose in the glass, I was teleported back to the lawn at Place Colbert in Reims in the summer of 1989. It was there and then I tasted the at the time the recently released 1979 Bollinger R.D., with my Swedish friends for the first time. It is extremely fascinating how strong the scent memory can be. My experience was so intense that for a few seconds I really found myself in another era. Considering that after the 79′ I have tasted hundreds of R.D. bottles from twenty or so other vintages, I initially found it remarkable and extremely fascinating. However, it was explained when Denis told us that he factually studied his statistical logbooks to look for vintages that were similar to the 2008 he was now going to present. He then found that the numbers were almost identical to another vintage.
‘Which one? Yes, that’s right, 1979! So there was a perfectly logical explanation for my scent teleporting journey.’
Richard Juhlin
‘This is something I have often thought about in my job as a blind taster. Would you be able to score all the wines you tasted before if they always tasted the same? It is, of course, a utopian question because each wine changes over time and, moreover, each bottle is unique. What I just experienced this morning in Aÿ is probably the closest to such an utopian exercise you can get thanks to the almost twin-like constitution of two vintages. What, then, shaped these twins? Simply put, it’s the similarities of the weather in both years and all the decisions made by Bollinger from harvest to disgorging. Both years produced an exceptionally slow fine and cool maturation where the extra years in contact with the lees the house gives its R.D. wines are key to accentuating its aromatic magnificence.
It is not always that Bollinger’s La Grande Année gains so much from being presented as R.D., but in this case the boost is extra obvious. Personally, I always think that the R.D. boost is strongest in cool and acidic vintages when the autolytic character gets more space to fill the gaps in the leaner wines that are around the narrower backbone of the wine. The nutty and warm bready aromas embed the acidity in an outstandingly grandiose suit. This beautifully sparkling 2008 is surprisingly light in colour, but will surely deepen towards more golden tones in the near future a little further from its fresh disgorgement date.
The colossal and wonderful scent is of such dignity that words can n’ever do it full justice. If I do try to describe this unique perfume, it is dominated by hazelnut cream from Piedmont, Domori chocolate from Venezuela, madeleine cookies, almond paste, wood sauna, gunpowder, grilled beef, duck liver, honeysuckle, mushroom cream, honey and nougat.
It takes a long time in the glass before the fruit appears and at the same time the nutty and grilled aromas tone down a bit. The taste is vibrantly fresh while being rich and grilled nutty. Here, minerality and sea aromas such as iodine and oyster shells show up together with an apricot-like sublime fruitiness. After a fresh attack, my senses are left supremely satisfied with an exemplary long aftertaste of honey.
If we stick to the facts, this fantastic champagne is composed from 18 villages, with the dominant parts as usual being Verzenay and Aÿ for Pinot Noir and Le Mesnil and Cramant for Chardonnay. It is notable that the dosage was kept to a record low 3 grams of sugar. My second bottle was a bit tighter than the first, so despite my 97 points from the start, it might be wise to wait six months before opening this already legendary wine. Given that we already have many years of experience with how beautifully the twin 1979 R.D. has developed and how well the wine has stood the test of time, my advice is to drink this gem between 2024–2030. Personally, I will even rather buy magnums that I will drink between 2027-2040.’
