Vincent Couche, “Sensation” Dégorgement Tardif

I want to start by making the following point perfectly clear: Vincent Couche’s 1999 is not a re-release; it is the debut. In other words, Vincent, a man of calculated madness (brilliance?), waited 20 years before disgorging and releasing his ‘99s. And even still, he’s doing so in the smallest of batches, which leads me to my second point: The number of magnums we secured for you today can be counted on a few hands.Truth be told, we didn’t even get the luxury of tasting a magnum—there wasn’t one to be spared—so we opened a standard-sized bottle that the importer specially brought over. The level of intelligence, freshness, and profound mineral precision each sip brought was staggering; it’s about as perfect as a 20+-year-old Champagne can get. Further, I’m confident today’s large format has embraced the past two decades with even more grace and harmony (because of the smaller wine-to-oxygen ratio) than its little 750mL brother. As much as I would like you to keep reading about this spe