“Picked at the sound of the cannon, drunk at the sound of the trumpet.” Maurice Pol Roger.

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I recently had the pleasure of dining at La Maison Pol Roger in Epernay. During the excellent dinner we were treated to a series of superb older champagnes but the piece de resistance, the final bottle, was truly revelatory.

It was a Pol Roger from the 1914 vintage, hence the relevance of the above quote. Germany had invaded France in August 1914, so the grapes were picked entirely by women and children while their fathers and husbands fought just a few kilometers away in the Battle of the Marne – named for the river that flows through Epernay.

It was then first drunk at the sound of the trumpets heralding the armistice of 1918.

My first impression was one of surprise – surprise at how fresh and lively it was for such an ancient wine, an ancient white wine. It showed not a touch of oxidization, but beyond that things got more difficult. It was so unlike any other wine I had tasted that there were no reference points for comparison. There was a honeyed quality to it, but without even a suggestion of sweetness. It  also has an unfamiliar almost bitter flavor – not sour or unpleasant, more like a resinous, piney essence, sort of aromatic and barky.

The tiny bubbles, vigorous at first, soon faded but amazingly the wine still retained its freshness, betraying not a hint of the fatigue that usually overcomes similarly ancient wines once they have been exposed to the air for even a few minutes.

As Peter, one of my fellow guests, observed, great old wines become themselves, loosing all normal descriptive references, and this proved the difficulty with the Pol Roger 1914.

“C’est un vin des emotions” was the way one of our hosts described it, a wine to share around the table as everyone marveled at the experience of such a venerable old wine, and perhaps that is a suitable epitaph – a wine so unique it defies description.