Decanter World Wine Awards 2024 Best in Show title won by Charles Heidsieck 2014 Blanc des Millénaires Champagne: ‘a masterpiece’ . . . ‘a landmark vintage . . . nothing short of era defining’ notes Matthew Jukes: case of six bottles delivered

Best in Show Decanter World Wine Awards 2024
Gold Medal International Wine Challenge
19.5+/20 Matthew Jukes
95/100 Tom Hewson, Decanter

Charles Heidsieck’s 2014 Blanc des Millénaires Champagne is a masterpiece—and it has just been awarded the supreme Best in Show title at the prestigious Decanter World Wine Awards 2024. We are proud and delighted to have secured this fine vintage Champagne for our Members. Charles Heidsieck is the Champagne House for those in the know, and a longtime favourite of the Club Tasting Panel. Matthew Jukes calls this 2014 vintage Blanc des Millénaires Champagne ‘a landmark vintage . . . nothing short of era defining’.

Note the DWWA judges awarding the Best in Show accolade: ‘It soon became apparent that the Côtes des Blancs was a winner zone in 2014, and time has only amplified the merits of this coolish but ultra-classical year for Blanc de Blancs from well-sited vineyards. Here’s a great example. Pale and fine-beaded, with a sumptuous aroma of cream, flowers, nuts and quiet orchard fruits—though it’s stealthy as yet, and further cellar time will certainly amplify the charm. On the palate, the wine is crystalline in terms of its focus and balance, while the flavours evoke the plant world—pressed spring leaf and sweet angelica—as much as fruit. The structure is impressive for a Blanc de Blancs, too. Stylish and assured Champagne.’

Notes Tom Hewson (Decanter): ‘The only Blanc des Millénaires made during Thierry Roset’s brief tenure as cellar master of Charles Heidsieck before his untimely death after the 2014 harvest. The wine was blended by Cyril Brun. It has seen less time on lees than the previous 2007 and 2006 wines – between eight and nine years rather than 12 – but the decision feels apt for this beautifully delicate, bright and serene edition of one of Champagne’s top, if lesser-known, prestige Blanc de Blancs, emphasising purity over creamy richness. There are plenty of ripe aromatics, with fuzzy fragrant apricots, mandarin and even some fresh mango playing with hazelnut and coffee macaron complexity just starting to fire up. There’s a quiet, calm insistence to the palate, more similar to the 2004 than the tension and drama of the 2007 or the generosity of the 2006. It seems set to be one of the vintage’s top performers. Chardonnay from Cramant, Avize, Oger, Le-Mesnil-sur-Oger and Vertus, entirely vinified in stainless steel with full malolactic fermentation. Dosage: 9g/L.’

Notes Matthew Jukes, ‘2014 Blanc des Millénaires is only the 8th vintage of this wine released since the inaugural wine in 1983. Let’s not beat around the bush – it is a spectacular Champagne… This is a raspingly refreshing wine. It is so precision-cut you might want to wear gloves. There is no doubt this unnervingly keen creation is not one for beginners. And if you feel a tear fighting to set free from a loose duct, just let it go. This wine is all about emotion and you must be leaden-hearted for it not to move you profoundly with its laser-sighted flavours and extraordinary tension. Flavour-wise it is incredible how so much direction and decisiveness can emerge from such a seemingly demure wine. Approaching its tenth birthday, and with eight of these years spent on its lees, it seems like this wine has been chiselled out of a gleamingly white chalk sarcophagus as it sits naked in the glass, and there is so much potential here it takes the breath away … This is a landmark vintage for Heidsieck’s incredible Chardonnay and while it is straight-jacketed, brutally honest, and epically long, there are just enough white florals, tender sablé tones and dramatic citrus zestiness, to signal that this wine will be nothing short of era-defining given time.’

Case of six bottles. RRP £1,260. CCUK £879 including duty, tax and UK mainland delivery.

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