If you’re serious about top‑tier Blanc de Blancs Champagne, this is the kind of allocation you move on immediately. James Suckling stamped this Pierre Gimonnet Special Club with a 96‑point rave, and we’ve secured the last 26 bottles on the West Coast, in stock and ready to ship. This is the crown jewel of one of Champagne’s most historic Chardonnay families—a once‑per‑vintage bottling drawn from century‑old vines in Cramant and crafted only when conditions are extraordinary.
The Gimonnet family has been rooted in the Côte des Blancs since the mid‑1600s, with written records listing them as ploughmen, sharecroppers, and winegrowers long before Champagne existed as we know it. Today, under Didier Gimonnet, the domaine farms nearly 30 hectares across Cuis, Cramant, Chouilly, Oger, and Vertus, with an astonishing concentration of old vines: 70% over 30 years old, 40% over 40, and two legendary parcels—Le Fond du Bateau (1911) and Les Buissons (1913)—forming the backbone of this Special Club. Their mastery of old‑vine Chardonnay is unmatched, and nowhere is that more evident than in this cuvée.
And the “Special Club” designation isn’t just a badge—it’s Champagne’s most unforgiving quality gauntlet. Only 28 grower‑producers are invited into the Club Trésors, and even they must earn the right to bottle a Club wine. The vintage must be approved by the committee; the wine must pass two separate blind tastings by independent enologists—first as a base wine, then again after three years on lees; and only if it clears every hurdle may it be released in the Club’s trademarked squat bottle. It is the purest guarantee of excellence in Champagne, and Gimonnet’s 2016 is a textbook example of why the system exists.
In the glass, this wine is electric: incredible tension and multi‑layered richness build with each passing second, lifted by a ripe fruit–crushed mineral core that seems to levitate. Explosions of ripe quince, apricot, and yellow apple lead into toasted nuts, brioche, salted lemon peel, citrus blossom, oyster shell, acacia honey, vanilla bean, lees, and crushed chalk. Despite the powerful minerality, the texture is remarkably supple—full, rich, and luxurious, with an underlying intensity that leaves a long, resonant imprint.
