Thirty-seven vintages. One bottle.
Back to 1937.
Charles Heidsieck marks its 175th year with a jeroboam that blends thirty-seven vintages of the house, the oldest laid down in 1937. Ten venues across Australia will open one. Lamont's is the first.
Amanda Aguilera is bringing more than the anniversary bottle. Blanc des Millénaires, the house's prestige blanc de blancs, poured across 2014, 2007, 2004 and 1995. Brut Millésime from 1995 and 1985. A 1985 rosé to close. Champagne with four decades of bottle age, opened in one room, in one sitting.
Saturday, September 19th
Hosted by Amanda Aguilera of Charles Heidsieck Australia
Masterclass: 5.30–7pm | 10 wines & canapes | $595
(Strictly limited seats.)
Champagne Charlie, and the Chalk Beneath Reims
Charles-Camille Heidsieck founded the house in 1851 and promptly sailed for New York, where he sold champagne with such style that the American press christened him Champagne Charlie. The nickname outlived him, and so did the house style: rich, slow, built on an unusually high proportion of reserve wines and long ageing in the Gallo-Roman chalk crayères beneath Reims, which the house has used since the nineteenth century.
That reserve library is the whole point. Where most houses blend a handful of back vintages into a non-vintage cuvée, Charles Heidsieck has always drawn on more, and older. The anniversary jeroboam is the logical extreme of that philosophy: thirty-seven vintages in one bottle, the oldest from 1937.
The Champagne Charlie legend is intertwined with the soul of a man who bequeathed so many new ideas to his House, and who knew what it was to be an entrepreneur, a gentleman and an innovator. Free-spirited and adventurous, his inspiration was enough to encourage his heirs today to recreate a cuvée in his name and, more particularly, in his nickname.
The Charles Heidsieck House and the spirit of Charlie invites you to savor times gone by while letting yourself be transported by a desire to form emotions, friendships and lasting dreams. Time has the power to amplify happiness.
Blanc des Millénaires is the other side of the house. One hundred percent Chardonnay from grand cru villages of the Côte des Blancs, released only in exceptional years and only after a decade or more in the crayères. It is one of the great prestige cuvées of Champagne and it is almost never seen in vertical.
Meet your host… Amanda Aguilera
The Wine List
On Arrival
NV Charles Heidsieck Brut Réserve
Tasting note to follow
First Bracket: Blanc des Millénaires, the modern releases
2014 Charles Heidsieck Blanc des Millénaires
Tasting note to follow
2007 Charles Heidsieck Blanc des Millénaires
Tasting note to follow
Second Bracket: the anniversary bottle, and two decades back
NV Charles Heidsieck ‘The Soul of Charles’, Jeroboam
Thirty-seven vintages, back to 1937
2004 Charles Heidsieck Blanc des Millénaires
Tasting note to follow
1995 Charles Heidsieck Blanc des Millénaires
Tasting note to follow
Third Bracket: Brut Millésime
1995 Charles Heidsieck Brut Millésime
Tasting note to follow
1985 Charles Heidsieck Brut Millésime
Tasting note to follow
To Finish…
NV Charles Heidsieck Rosé Réserve
Tasting note to follow
1985 Charles Heidsieck Brut Millésime Rosé
Tasting note to follow