Brice Verzenay NV Grand Cru Champagne

OK. Famous people called Bryce/Brice:

• Bryce Courtney – novelist
• Bryce Howard – actor and daughter of Richie Cunningham
• Bryce Florrie – baseball player (scratching head)
• Bryce Molder – golfer and presumably cousin to Agent Molder
• Bryce James – son of LeBron

There you have it. Famous Bryce’s’/Brice’s’ that role off the tongue as easy as putting on wet cement!

This little exercise was to highlight that there are no Brice’s out there in neon lights. This leads me to Brice champagne! Might as well call it Colin champagne or Leanne champagne. Nevertheless, Brice Verzenay NV Grand Cru champagne is the name of the wine (and I didn’t just make up the label and put it on an old bottle for fun, although, that’s not a bad idea).

Now the Brice family have only been making wine since the 17th century, but this business is only 16 years old (scratching head again)and pretty much stick to Pinot Noir based wine, with this wine being 75% PN and 25% chardonnay. I worked vintage in Champagne in 1998 and 1999 and frequented many small houses on my day off, but I somehow missed Brice.

Back to the wine. Well, it definitely is Pinot Noir driven, with a distinct pale peach colour to it. In the glass is subtle brioche and cranberry and raspberry. The palate is whacky, with nuts, brioche and apricot all being primary, flavours I would not necessary say were true Pinot Noir. A nice wine, if bizarre in coming forward. But Grand Cru, don’t know about that!

Drink with poached salmon
Drink till 2012
90
Quality cork and cage 12.5%v/v $80ish from Blackheart & Sparrows Fitzroy North