Veuve Clicquot was founded in Reims in 1772. Its name and its character come from Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin, widowed at twenty-seven in 1805 and left in charge of the house at a time when a woman running a business was close to unthinkable.

She changed champagne twice. In 1816 she devised the riddling table, the method still used to clear a bottle of its sediment. In 1818 she made the first known blended rosé champagne — adding red wine to the blend rather than tinting it, the method still used today.

The house style has stayed hers: Pinot Noir dominant, built on structure and body rather than delicacy.

La Grande Dame Rosé is the rarest thing the house makes: the prestige cuvée given colour by a small addition of its own Pinot Noir red wine, from the grand cru of Bouzy. Two of Barbe-Nicole’s innovations in a single bottle.

2008 is one of the great modern Champagne vintages — cool and late, with exceptional acidity. It gives this rosé a spine that will carry it for years yet.

Wild strawberry and blood orange over pastry and a wisp of smoke; vinous and deep on the palate, held taut by acidity, closing long and saline.