In celebration of over 40 years of partnership as the Official Champagne of 007 and No Time To Die, Champagne Bollinger has created a limited edition that brings together three icons: Bollinger’s signature Special Cuvée, the Aston Martin DB5 and the legendary British secret agent, James Bond.

Credit: Greg Williams

Bollinger worked with the celebrated photographer Greg Williams for the new Special Cuvée 007 Limited Edition campaign, featuring his signature cinematic style. Greg has shot posters for multiple Bond movies, including No Time To Die. He’s also shot behind the scenes at the Oscars, BAFTA and is a regular contributor to British Vogue & Vanity Fair.

The Special Cuvée 007 Limited Edition has been shot alongside the Aston Martin DB5 Goldfinger Continuation car as a backdrop. This unique car, developed by Aston Martin in collaboration with EON Productions, was built as an authentic reproduction of the iconic DB5 film car as featured in No Time To Die.

Also noteworthy is the new Bollinger 007 Bar at the Burlington Arcade, the world’s first and the only standalone branded bar in London. It offers the ultimate James Bond experience within the ‘jewel of Mayfair’.

Credit: Burlington Arcade

The Bollinger 007 bar is spread across two floors. The ground floor is resplendent in gold and black, framed with gold leaf walls and bespoke brass and marble furniture and a Bollinger bar, whilst the 1st-floor lounge is a place to luxuriate. A replica model Aston Martin DB5 prominently features in the window, alongside the Bollinger Moonraker limited edition produced to celebrate the 40th anniversary and mark the release of No Time To Die.

The boutique will showcase exclusive products such as The Bollinger 007 Limited Edition Millésimé 2011 – a vintage dedicated to 007. The 2011 vintage, an atypical year, inspired Cellar Master to produce a unique Champagne created entirely from Pinot Noir from the Grand Cru village of Aÿ, where the House was first established in 1829. This is the first time that both the vintage and village have been used exclusively by Bollinger to make a dedicated wine.

The bar will remain open until early January, so there’s time to go and enjoy a glass of Bond’s favourite Champagne!

Firstly, Champagne Bollinger has released a new limited edition: B13 (Bollinger 2013), which reflects a unique year and embodies Bollinger’s environmental values. In 2013, the Champagne region faced unique weather conditions, and from a particularly late harvest, Bollinger shaped the wine into a vintage and limited edition Blanc de Noirs. Just 5 Crus were chosen for the cuvée of which 92% Grand Cru & 8% Premiers Cru.

Characterised by freshness, the 2013 vintage has a unique profile, expressed by fruity aromas –notes of citrus and yellow fruits – and gourmet ones –with flavours of tarte-tatin and fresh almond. Tension and minerality characterise this edition—a glistening and precise wine. Richard Juhlin awarded the Champagne 95 points, Matthew Jukes 18.5/20, and Essi Avellan MW scored it 93-95 points, commenting that it is her “favourite of Bollinger limited editions so far!”

As for Champagne AYALA, they celebrate an exceptional new 2012 vintage of La Perle, the prestige cuvée of the House. 2012 was the first harvest with  Caroline Latrive as Cellar master; she comments that the year was “characterised by a very particular climatology and an absolutely perfect grape health at the harvest. The extracted musts were of an exceptional quality, very healthy, and the Chardonnay from the Côte  des Blancs turned out to be particularly concentrated and characterful.”

A pure expression of the House’s style, it is made up exclusively  of  Grands  Crus  from  the  Côte  des Blancs in Chardonnay: Chouilly, Cramant, Le Mesnil- sur-Oger  and  in  Pinot  Noir  from  the  Montagne  de Reims in Verzy.

La  Perle is the epitome of  Champagne  AYALA’s bespoke craftsmanship:  8 years of ageing with natural corks, hand-riddling on traditional racks and disgorgement by hand. The extended ageing in the House’s cellar allowed for a complex and aromatic Champagne. This was recognised by judges at the Decanter World Wine Awards 2021, with AYALA La Perle 2012 winning a gold medal. Anne Krebiehl MW awarded the wine 96 points, commenting, “The palate is exquisitely brisk and vivid: lithe in its soaring lemon freshness but anchored in deepest, coolest, most salty soil that lends richness and vertical dimension. The mousse is fine and lively, the balance is striking, there is something heightened, precise and absolutely pure about this.”

We are delighted to announce that Ayala Le Blanc de Blancs 2014 has won a Gold Medal in The Drinks Business Global Sparkling Masters 2021!

It received the following tasting note from the judges: “Fine, autolytic, quite pungent. Full-flavoured, aged wine with lovely concentration and complex, lemony, honeyed fruit and bready freshness.  Delicious, long, complex.”

The wine has also been selected by Patrick Schmitt MW to be featured at the Drinks Business Wine And Spirits Show Master of Wine Selection Table in October. This stand will showcase the top wines from each of the 2021 Global Masters competitions. The Wine & Spirits Show will be back at Chelsea Old Town Hall on the 15th, 16th and 17th of October 2021.

We are pleased to announce that the Alentejan Cartuxa brand has joined the Mentzendorff portfolio. Cartuxa is one of the oldest wineries in Portugal and is steeped in history. Vineyards have been on the same Quinta de Valbom site in Évora since 1517, when the Jesuits came to the region to establish the second oldest university in Portugal. The name Cartuxa comes from the Cartuxa monastery that the Carthusians started to build in 1587 and finished in 1598. It was in 1871 that the Cartuxa monastery and the Valbom were rescued from ruin by the Eugénio de Almeida family.

Today, Cartuxa works across 1050 hectares of vineyards across four sites and is owned by the charitable foundation, Fundação Eugénio de Almeida. In 1963, Vasco Maria Eugénio de Almeida created the foundation, responsible for developing many important social and cultural organisations across the region, including the Évora University, hospitals, social housing and numerous welfare institutions.

The wines of Cartuxa are produced within the Alentejo sub-region of Évora and have long been legendary within Portugal. The iconic Pêra-Manca has a long pedigree that is intertwined with Portuguese history. Not only were the wines from the “Pêra-Manca region” first mentioned in a letter from Évora Town Council to King João II in 1488, but they were also aboard Pedro Álvares Cabral’s ship when he discovered Brazil in 1500. The Pêra-Manca brand was first patented in the 1870s, and the wines gathered international recognition when the reds won gold medals in Bordeaux soon after. Following many political changes in Portugal, the arrival of phylloxera and the death of the vineyard owner in 1920, the Pêra-Manca wines were not made again until 1990 when Cartuxa revived the Pêra-Manca label for its flagship wines. Today the wines celebrate native grape varieties and now have cult status within Portugal and around the world. Olive oil is also a major part of the Fundação Eugénio de Almeida, and now farms an area of some 400ha.

Pedro Baptista, Vice-President of the Executive Board and winemaker of Fundação Eugénio de Almeida, comments, “We believe that Mentzendorff is the perfect partner for our vision to produce unique wines for UK wine lovers and for new consumers who want to discover and feel the spirit of the Alentejo-Évora region in a glass of wine.”