Champagne Bollinger was founded at Aÿ in 1829 and remains family-controlled — one of the last of the grandes marques that can say so. It has held a Royal Warrant since 1884, and has been James Bond’s champagne on screen since the 1970s.

Three things define the house and none of them are marketing. It is Pinot Noir dominant, which is why the wine tastes vinous rather than delicate. A large share of the base wine is fermented in old oak barrels rather than steel — the house keeps thousands of them, with its own cooper on site. And the reserve wines are aged in magnum under cork, a slow, expensive method almost nobody else still uses.

The Special Cuvée is the result: baked apple and toasted brioche over walnut and warm spice; full-bodied and vinous on the palate, carried by a fine persistent bead, closing long and dry. Aged well beyond the appellation minimum before release.