Vieilles Vignes Francaises
⏳ wine.drinking_window
Typically best enjoyed 10 to 30 years from the vintage release.
🍽️ wine.food_pairings
White truffle risotto, roasted pheasant, aged Comté cheese
✨ wine.spec_sheet
Bollinger's Vieilles Vignes Françaises is a liquid monument to the pre-phylloxera past of Champagne. This legendary Blanc de Noirs is crafted from ungrafted Pinot Noir vines grown in two tiny, walled enclosures in Aÿ: Chaudes Terres and Clos Saint-Jacques. These precious vines miraculously escaped the devastating phylloxera epidemic of the late 19th century. They are cultivated using the ancient, labor-intensive 'provignage' method of layering, where the vines are grown 'en foule' (in a crowd) and worked entirely by hand. Fermented in seasoned oak casks, this ultra-rare cuvée offers an unparalleled glimpse into the rich, powerful, and deeply concentrated flavors of historical Champagne, characterized by extraordinary depth, vinous structure, and complex autolytic notes.
🍾 wine.about_producer
Founded in 1829 in the historic village of Aÿ by Jacques Bollinger, Paul Renaudin, and Hennequin de Villermont, Champagne Bollinger is one of the region's most prestigious and fiercely independent family-owned houses. Renowned for its Pinot Noir-dominated blends and traditional production methods, Bollinger uniquely ferments its vintage wines in seasoned oak casks and maintains an extensive library of reserve wines aged in magnums under cork. The house's signature style is defined by its rich complexity, structure, and depth, best exemplified by legendary cuvées like Special Cuvée, La Grande Année, and the late-disgorged R.D. Additionally, Bollinger preserves a rare piece of viticultural history with its ungrafted, pre-phylloxera Pinot Noir vines used to produce the ultra-exclusive Vieilles Vignes Françaises.