Rare Brut Vintage with Gift Box 2006

  • 97 Jeb
    Dunnuck
  • 96 Wine
    Spectator
  • 95 Wine
    Enthusiast
  • 94 Robert
    Parker
4.8 Fantastic (12)
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Rare Brut Vintage with Gift Box 2006 Front Bottle Shot
Rare Brut Vintage with Gift Box 2006 Front Bottle Shot Rare Brut Vintage with Gift Box 2006  Gift Product Image Rare Brut Vintage with Gift Box 2006  Front Label

Product Details


Varietal

Region

Producer

Vintage
2006

Size
750ML

Your Rating

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Somm Note

Winemaker Notes

Glows with an iridescent yellow-green gold. Delicate, dynamic bubbles glisten in this flaxen brilliance.

Offers a generous honeyed and oriental nose. The fragrances of crisp mango, cocoa, coffee, tropical fruits, lend the vintage a sophisticated vitality.

In the exceptionally long finish hints of mocha and cocoa confirm the fine Rare Millesime 2006’s minerality. Dried apricots, sweet spices, citron lime, accents of crisp honeyed pastries and Espelette pepper envelop the palate.

Professional Ratings

  • 97
    The flagship release is the 2006 Champagne Rare, a 70/30 split of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir that’s a cellar selection from 8 different Grand Cru vineyards. Tight, backward, and straight-up structured, it offers brilliant notes of stone fruits, toasted brioche, white flowers, and obvious minerality. Needing plenty of air to show at its best, this beauty has a wonderful mid-palate, a racy mousse, and the balance and class to cruise for over two decades in cool cellars.
    Rating 97+
  • 96
    Aromas and flavors of toasted brioche and grilled nut enrich the yellow plum, nectarine and grated ginger notes of this rich and creamy Champagne. Finely woven and beautifully integrated, with a firm backbone of mouthwatering acidity providing precise balance for the lush range of flavor. Drink now through 2029.
  • 95
    Piper-Heidsieck's luxury cuvée with its beautifully decorated bottle is a well-matured blend of mainly Chardonnay with some Pinot Noir. Great drive and energy comes from the ripe fruit with its hints of almonds and toast.
  • 94
    The 2006 Brut Cuvée Rare is a rich, gourmand rendition of this prestige bottling, unfurling in the glass with a complex bouquet that mingles aromas of yellow orchard fruit, pears and fresh pineapple with nuances of buttered toast, iodine and smoke. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, broad and textural, while remaining fresh and surprisingly tight-knit at the core, concluding with a long and saline finish. There's sufficient structural tension here to promise more than a decade's graceful evolution, and although this is nicely balanced, it's a generous, sun kissed rendition of the Cuvée Rare that reflects the warm vintage. The blend is 70% Chardonnay and 30% Pinot Noir.

Other Vintages

2013
  • 96 James
    Suckling
  • 96 Decanter
  • 95 Wine
    Spectator
2008
  • 97 Wine
    Spectator
  • 96 Jeb
    Dunnuck
  • 96 Decanter
  • 96 Wine
    Enthusiast
  • 93 Robert
    Parker
2002
  • 98 Decanter
  • 97 Wine
    Spectator
  • 97 Jeb
    Dunnuck
  • 95 Wine &
    Spirits
  • 94 Wine
    Enthusiast
  • 93 James
    Suckling
Rare

Rare Champagne

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Rare Champagne, France
Rare Champagne is of noble origin which dates back to 1785 when Queen Marie Antoinette tasted the House’s first cuvee. Limited-production and unabashedly exclusive, Rare Champagne is a regal rejection of convention and an extraordinary occurrence, with only 13 vintages having been released in the last 4 decades: 1976, 1979, 1985, 1988, 1990, 1998, 1999, 2002, 2006, 2008, 2013 and Rare Rosé Millésime 2007, 2008, 2012. The Cellar Master creates each Rare Champagne vintage to reflect an exceptional year that magnifies nature itself. For instance, Rare Millésime 1976 was created after an exceptional drought and Rare Millésime 1985 was created following a terrible black frost. Above all, the Cellar Master seeks to achieve an emblematic silky texture and an endless freshness for Rare Champagne. He selects the vineyards according to their expression rather than their rank in the scale of Premier and Grand Crus. He thinks outside the box, choosing Chardonnay grapes from the Montagne de Reims, famous especially for Pinot Noir, giving an incredible and precise minerality. He also prefers the Pinot Noir grapes from the Montagne de Reims for their sheer intensity and powerful silky texture. This unconventional blending approach contributes to the complex, distinguished, and yet pure style of Rare Champagne. One of the top five prestige cuvées of the world, Rare Champagne is internationally renowned for its distinguished style, its unique blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, for its signature exotic notes, and for its infinite freshness and purity. Rare Champagne has been crafted by unique expertise, a sophisticated vision and by the most demanding of standards making it the true exception from the region.
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Representing the topmost expression of a Champagne house, a vintage Champagne is one made from the produce of a single, superior harvest year. Vintage Champagnes account for a mere 5% of total Champagne production and are produced about three times in a decade. Champagne is typically made as a blend of multiple years in order to preserve the house style; these will have non-vintage, or simply, NV on the label. The term, "vintage," as it applies to all wine, simply means a single harvest year.

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Associated with luxury, celebration, and romance, the region, Champagne, is home to the world’s most prized sparkling wine. In order to bear the label, ‘Champagne’, a sparkling wine must originate from this northeastern region of France—called Champagne—and adhere to strict quality standards. Made up of the three towns Reims, Épernay, and Aÿ, it was here that the traditional method of sparkling wine production was both invented and perfected, birthing a winemaking technique as well as a flavor profile that is now emulated worldwide.

Well-drained, limestone and chalky soil defines much of the region, which lend a mineral component to its wines. Champagne’s cold, continental climate promotes ample acidity in its grapes but weather differences from year to year can create significant variation between vintages. While vintage Champagnes are produced in exceptional years, non-vintage cuvées are produced annually from a blend of several years in order to produce Champagnes that maintain a consistent house style.

With nearly negligible exceptions, . These can be blended together or bottled as individual varietal Champagnes, depending on the final style of wine desired. Chardonnay, the only white variety, contributes freshness, elegance, lively acidity and notes of citrus, orchard fruit and white flowers. Pinot Noir and its relative Pinot Meunier, provide the backbone to many blends, adding structure, body and supple red fruit flavors. Wines with a large proportion of Pinot Meunier will be ready to drink earlier, while Pinot Noir contributes to longevity. Whether it is white or rosé, most Champagne is made from a blend of red and white grapes—and uniquely, rosé is often produce by blending together red and white wine. A Champagne made exclusively from Chardonnay will be labeled as ‘blanc de blancs,’ while ones comprised of only red grapes are called ‘blanc de noirs.’

SWS953928_2006 Item# 557430

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