Pommery's cellars are cut into the chalk beneath Reims: Gallo-Roman quarries thirty metres down, joined by eighteen kilometres of galleries under a mock-Elizabethan house that Madame Louise Pommery built in the 1870s. She is a large part of the reason Champagne is dry at all, having shipped the first serious brut to Britain in 1874 because the English would not drink the sweet stuff.
1983 was a large and genuinely good harvest in Champagne, and the vintage wines made from it had the substance to keep. This is one of them, forty-three years on. Old Champagne of this kind loses most of its mousse and turns deep gold, tasting of toast, dried apple and hazelnut, much closer to an aged white wine than to a celebration fizz.
Serve it cool rather than cold, in proper glasses, and open it knowing that a bottle of this age is a collector's item first and a drink second.
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Producer: Pommery
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Wine: Brut
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Vintage: 1983
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Appellation: Champagne AOC
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Format: 75cl
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Region: Champagne, France
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Style: Sparkling
Where it is likely to be now. Vintage Champagne of 1983 will have lost most of its bubble and turned deep gold; some bottles are still remarkable and others are tired, and it is sold as a collectible without a guarantee.
Who it suits. Champagne carries a birthday better than anything else, and a bottle turning forty-three in 2026 alongside the person born that year makes the point without a word of explanation.
Condition. The bottle is graded in good condition throughout — capsule, label and fill — which for a vintage Champagne of this age also indicates the cork has held.
Provenance. Bought to order from a professional European merchant. We check fill, label and capsule when the bottle reaches us and photograph it before it ships.
Delivered in 7 to 10 working days, tracked. Transit cover can be added at checkout.
Sold as a collectible item, as seen. No guarantee is given on drinkability.
