Champagne Roger Barnier, “Brut Sélection”

Delivering quality matched only by a few in their respective price range has been our unwavering goal here at SommSelect—and it’s time-consuming work: Even after preselecting wines to taste, by eliminating those that aren’t sustainable/organic/biodynamic, we estimate that less than 20% of the wines we taste make the cut. I say all this because on rare occasions, gems are delivered on a silver platter, without us doing any of the grueling legwork. That’s how Champagne Roger Barnier came into our life. By way of an unsolicited sample from a small-scale artisanal importer, we tasted today’s Brut Sélection—based on the 2014 vintage with a healthy percentage of older, barrel-matured reserve wines—and lost our minds when the price was revealed.How is it that a long-aged champagne of luxurious nature and limited US presence (only 45 cases brought over) can exist at $39? Obscurity. We’re deep in the Coteaux de du Morin, directly southwest of the fabled Côte des Blancs, a small valley region ma