Wino Wednesday – 2002 Moët & Chandon Grand Vintage Rose, Champagne

Wino Wednesday, a monthly feature on Food Gypsy where we choose a bottle from the recycling bin and tell you how much we enjoyed drinking it.  April’s pick: 2002 Moët & Chandon Grand Vintage Rose, Champagne a bit of bubbling happiness.  

April seemed a jovial month, things were looking up when, WHAM, the last week knocked us right back to square one.  The why and how doesn’t matter much; when crisis strikes it’s how you deal with it that counts, and how we dealt with it was to crack a bottle of bubbly and celebrate.

The 2002 Moët & Chandon Grand Vintage Rose, Champagne ($72) has been chilling for several months.  A gift from a good friend, it was to be a cork popped for some unknown amazingly-fantastic occasion in the future.  But life has taught me that the end of one thing is simply the beginning of another, so why not say goodbye to the old and welcome the new with a touch of style.

Tinted pink by the pigment of the Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier two of the blend of grapes that ferment to give us this swanky bottle of sparkling rosé.  It’s full pink/salmon colour and fruity falvour lends hints of ripe berry after it’s first breath.  The smoothness of the mousse really got me, creamy with a hint of spice.

2002 Moët & Chandon Grand Vintage Rose is a crisp, clean champagne with a long finish.  I might like to cellar the next bottle that comes my way for a decade or so and see how it compares.  Excellent in a crisis.  Bubbles go with anything: salty snacks, barbecued meats, even tears, which quickly turned to laughter.  It’s hard to be blue drinking something so perfectly pink.  How bad can it be if there’s champagene?!

Gypsy Scorecard: 90/100 —  a fine bottle on a not so fine day.