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Champagne G.H. Mumm® Announces Return of Legendary Prestige Cuvée R. Lalou
Highly Anticipated 1998 Vintage Captures the Essence of G.H. Mumm and Fulfills the Vision of Original Creator René Lalou
Purchase, NY (February 29, 2008) – G.H. Mumm and Chef de Caves Didier Mariotti have announced a rare and long-awaited addition to its Champagne portfolio, the 1998 R. Lalou (suggested retail price: $159.99) available at fine restaurants and select wine outlets nationwide.
The Cuvée R. Lalou is the offspring of the Cuvée René Lalou, originally launched in 1966 and last released in 1985. A mere nine vintages punctuate the Champagne’s 25-year history, yet it is still ranked among the greatest Champagne cuvées ever conceived.
To the delight of chefs and Champagne connoisseurs worldwide, the celebrated Champagne has been released in an evolved blend, which represents the dream of master winemaker René Lalou to bottle the true essence of G.H. Mumm.
As chairman of G.H. Mumm for more than half a century, René Lalou was a true visionary with unending passion and instinctive understanding of terroir. He took upon himself the grand task of selecting the optimum Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes from the twelve finest grand cru villages and combining them into a single, complex blend. The result was the original Cuvée René Lalou, which successfully captured the smell, touch and taste of G.H. Mumm.
Lalou’s ultimate goal was to protect the integrity of the grapes by identifying and isolating the individual parcels, the very building blocks that define the character of terroir, from grape picking through vinification.
Successive Chef de Caves of G.H. Mumm strived to recreate the essence of the Cuvée René Lalou while fulfilling the goal of the original creator. René Lalou’s copious notes were carefully passed down through the generations and samples of consecutive blends were guarded so that they could one day serve as the base for a new blend. With the debut of the 1998 R. Lalou, the fruits of their efforts are made readily apparent and, for the first time in history, showcase the very heart of G.H. Mumm.
“The 1998 R. Lalou is the culmination of generations of winemaking expertise and marks a return to the roots of G. H. Mumm, both literally and figuratively,” explains Didier Mariotti, current Chef de Caves at G.H. Mumm. “Fusing the wisdom of preceding generations with recent advances in winemaking technology, we are confident that we have finally produced the cuvée about which René Lalou first dreamed.”
The 1998 R. Lalou benefits from a blend of tradition and technology enabling the historic grand cru parcels to be examined and analyzed on a molecular level. Mariotti has developed a tracking system that allows him to isolate individual parcels in the fashion that René Lalou had originally intended. At the same time, the cuvée stays true to G.H. Mumm’s venerable oenological philosophy that emphasizes the natural expression of the soil, the vines and the fruit – all conditions contributing to the inimitable quality of G.H. Mumm’s terroir.
Mariotti tirelessly sampled hand-selected grapes from each of the twelve vineyards, carefully choosing the best of the individual parcels for inclusion in the final blend. The grapes from each vineyard were crushed separately in traditional presses and then vinified one at a time. These painstaking and time-intensive methods are integral to the final result, as Didier explains, “When one reaches a certain level of perfection, as the grand crus allow us to do, one then seeks to go further and perfect that perfection.”
The 1998 R. Lalou is a diverse blend of Chardonnay grapes, which give body and fullness to the wine, and Pinot Noir grapes, which contribute to the powerful bouquet. The result features aromas of nougat, orange, white flowers and honey, and boasts a clean, lively palate that maintains a fine balance between structure and acidity. In the tradition of the legendary 1982, 1990 and 1996 vintages, 1998 was marked by strong climatic contrasts, lending the wines a high degree of maturity and freshness.
More than a mere prestige cuvée, the 1998 R. Lalou is G.H. Mumm’s heartfelt tribute to René Lalou, the original legend behind a now legendary wine. Concludes Didier Mariotti, “If this blend holds true to the spirit of Lalou – and I certainly believe that it does – it is because the House has never made a cuvée that captures so completely the heart and essence of an entire terroir, of its own history and of one man.”
About Pernod Ricard USA
Pernod Ricard USA, based in Purchase, N.Y., is a leading producer, importer and marketer of prized spirits and wine brands in the United States and is one of the fastest growing subsidiaries of the world’s #2 spirits company and #4 wine company, Paris, France-based Pernod Ricard, S.A. The completion of Pernod Ricard’s acquisition of Allied Domecq in 2005 vaulted Pernod Ricard USA to the forefront of the U.S. spirits market, doubling the company’s sales value and market share. The company is now the third largest in the U.S. spirits industry by sales value and the fifth largest by sales volume in the U.S.
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