Two great champagne vintages – 1995 and 1996

See wine news for my overview of a fascinating recent tasting of champagnes from these two unusually good vintages. The 1996s will surely turn out to be some of the finest champagnes ever. I can't wait to see what sort of wines will be released by the mainstream producers for most of the early releases are from more obscure or smaller firms. Even so, they tasted jolly good (see below).

I have, at the suggestion of one subscriber (see Your turn [predecessor of the forum]), awarded stars out of a maximum of five to each wine instead of points out...