Reply #3: From Ask Jeeves [View All]

[Paul Hood]

Question:

What is the shelf life of champagne

Answer:

It would be good to think of champagne as a variety of wine, like there is also red and white wine, rather than to consider it to be a different product like for example whiskey. As such we can buy and keep champagne according to our own (our employers) taste. If we like to drink champagne because of its crisp and fizzy caracter, we should go for a younger bottle. If we prefer champagne with nice aromas of toasted bread and hazelnuts we should take a bottle out of our cellar that we have kept for a number of years. But you should remember that after some years the bubbles in the champagne slowly disappear. This is a natural process. > I suggest, to make things easy, that we roughly divide champagne into 2 categories. The first category exists of unknown champagnes often made in little houses; ?les grandes marques? as Taitinger, Krug, Moët & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot, Bollinger, ? and the rosé or pink champagnes. These are the champagnes that, generaly speaking, reveal their beauty in a younger stage. I would suggest to buy them in small quantities from a wine merchant you can trust. (You don?t know how long the bottle ?stands? around in your supermarket or lies in the shelves of your wine merchants storageroom) It would also be good to rotate your stock within e.g. 1 year time to be on the safe side. The second category is the one with the ?Deluxe? and vintage(from 1 perticular exceptional year) champagnes. These champagnes are in the first place made to resist and to take benefit from an aging proces. Examples of Delux brands are : Dom Perignon, Bollinger RD, La Grande Dame, Grande Siècle, Comtes de Champagne, ? If you prefer to drink champagne young, than these wines should be drunk before their 10th birthday. Do you like the taste of aged wines, give this champagne an other 5 to 10 years extra in your cellar. If ever you find a bottle of a vintage champagne, from a magnificent year, at the age of 30 years and older than ? invite some friends and order a large quantity of foie-gras on toasts and celebrate!!