Producing a consistent non-vintage Champagne year on year is an often underrated task. The creation of a Champagne which continually expresses the House style involves all the Cellar Master’s skill. With this in mind, Champagne Bollinger held a master class in London recently on their benchmark non-vintage Special Cuvée to explore what makes it ‘Special’.

Trade and press assembled for the first tasting of its kind that the city has seen involving still pre-blends, wines in reserve magnum from the Bollinger cellars and tasters of the final blends for future releases of Special Cuvée.

Bollinger Cellar Master Gilles Descôtes gave guests a fascinating insight into the process of creating Bollinger’s non-vintage wine, the latest blend of which involved opening 70,000 magnums of still reserve wine by hand to find the right ingredients for the wine’s recipe. The tasting also marked the launch of the 1846 Jeroboam bottle shape for Special Cuvée, the last of the family to join the range.