Champagne Henri Goutorbe, Spécial Club For Cheap

The “Spécial Club,” known as Club Trésors de Champagne since 1999, is among the most rigorous wine organizations on earth. Other than being one of the 28 members—which happens only through private invitation—a series of fortunate events must occur should you want to display “Spécial Club” on your label. First, it must be a Vintage Champagne from a year deemed worthy by the committee. Second, your wine must be blind tasted twice by a nonpartisan panel of enologists and winemakers—once as a base wine and then again after three years of bottle aging. If your wine does meet all of the requirements then, and only then, can you use today’s specially designed squat-shaped bottle, which is trademarked exclusively for the club’s usage.

Henri Goutourbe’s 2006, from vines entirely within the Grand Cru village of Aÿ, aged for seven years on lees before disgorgement. Now, with several more years of bottle age post-disgorgement, it is all-the-more creamy, rich, and complex. A 14-year-old Grand Cru “Spécial Club” at this price is a real treat.