The 1998 Philipponnat Clos des Goisses LV represents the same Late Vintage designation offered in Batch 18 of this catalogue for the 1994 expression: wines held at the Philipponnat estate for an extended period beyond the standard release timeline, accumulating additional autolytic complexity and secondary character from their continued time on the lees or in cellar before disgorgement. At twenty-six years from harvest, the 1998 Clos des Goisses LV is, by any measure, a wine of extraordinary maturity: the Clos des Goisses’ remarkable combination of steep south-facing chalk soils, exceptional sun exposure and the Maréuil-sur-Aÿ terroir’s specific geological character having provided the base material for a wine capable of sustaining this extraordinary ageing arc with complete naturalness and increasing complexity. The 1998 Champagne vintage, while not considered one of the decade’s greatest years in general assessment, produced wines of good natural structure and quality from the most precisely situated and managed vineyards, and the Clos des Goisses’ specific micro-climate provides conditions that moderate vintage variation more effectively than any general vineyard in the appellation.

At the level of age represented by the 1998 LV, the comparison with the 1994 offered in Batch 18 provides a fascinating and genuinely rare vertical study of the same single monopole at two stages of development: the 1994 at thirty-two years from harvest and the 1998 at twenty-six. Both wines represent the Clos des Goisses at different stages of the same extended development arc, and both provide the experience of a mature, complex, vinous Champagne from the appellation’s most dramatically situated and historically celebrated single vineyard at a level of development available nowhere else in the fine Champagne market.

A 1998 Philipponnat Clos des Goisses LV is a proposition for the Champagne collector who has moved well beyond the world of prestige cuvées and multi-vintage blended Champagne and who seeks the most precise, individual and historically document single-vineyard expression of the appellation’s capacity for ageing at a quarter century from harvest.

Deep amber gold with fine, persistent bubbles and a complex and evolved nose of roasted hazelnut, honey, preserved lemon, mushroom, tobacco, old wax and the deep chalk-mineral character of aged Clos des Goisses Champagne at a very mature stage of development. Full-bodied with remarkable natural freshness, excellent residual acidity and a very long, nutty, vinous, mineral finish. Drink now through 2030.