Tyson’s Annual 16 NV Champagnes Brunch, 2024
10-12:30pm, 16 Champagnes &
5 Courses Menu $295
Sunday June 2nd
To enquire about booking tickets to this event click here,
or purchase your ticket online here.
The 16 NV Champagnes:
1st Course
Billecart-Salmon Blanc de Blancs NV
Charles Heidsieck Blanc de Blancs NV
Berries, sheep milk Cremieux
2nd Course
Billecart-Salmon Brut Réserve NV
Pol Roger Brut Réserve NV
Piper Heidsieck Brut NV
Louis Roederer Collection 244 NV
Salmon carpaccio, black garlic, toasted almonds, lime
3rd Course
Taittinger Prélude NV
Pommery Brut NV
Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label Brut NV
Jamon, warm toast
4th Course
Billecart-Salmon Rosé NV
Thienot X Penfolds Rosé
Charles Heidsieck Rosé NV
Bollinger Rosé NV
Duck rillette croquette, salsa verde
5th Course
Charles Heidsieck Brut Réserve NV
Bollinger Special Cuvée NV
Krug Grand Cuvée 171ème NV
Rosti, crayfish and tomato salsa
Espresso, macaron
How Tyson sees the Champagnes
Billecart-Salmon Blanc de Blancs NV
I have long adored this wine, and now there’s even more to love, sporting smart blue foil on the front label and the disgorgement date on the back. A bright, pale straw hue, this is a release that embodies its 2015 base in its contrast of structural tension with considerable concentration. Pear and apple fruit of depth and presence is cut with grapefruit and wild lemon. Reserves declare considerable dimension in layers of wild honey, toasted brioche, candied almonds, even suggestions of fruit mince spice. Such magnitude is contained impeccably, equally by energetic acidity and the omnipresent, mouth-embracing, frothing, salty chalk mineral declaration of four of the sparkling world’s most commanding chardonnay crus. A grand statement indeed.
95 Points, Tyson Stelzer, champagne.guide
Charles Heidsieck Blanc de Blancs NV
After four years on cork this cuvée has upheld the tightly coiled lemon and crunchy apple tension and fennel notes that define the purity, drive, energy and longevity of 2014. The saline minerality of the Côte des Blancs lays out a splendid expanse of glittering, textured structure. It's a grand testimony to the integrity and longevity of the reintroduction of Blanc de Blancs non-vintage to Charles Heidsieck.
95 Points, Tyson Stelzer, champagne.guide
Billecart-Salmon Brut Réserve NV
Billecart’s enchanting Brut Réserve upholds its aspiration of lofty freshness and elegance, even in the presence of impressive levels of reserve wines, now generously more than 50% of the blend, and impressive lees age. This cuvée is a captivating contradiction, dressing one of Champagne’s higher representations of meunier in one of the most delicate and graceful of attires. The brilliant crystalline radiance that defines Billecart shines bright and strong in the 2016 base, epitomising the purity and precision that we adore of this beloved house. Meunier and pinot noir unite in a core of delightfully fresh, crunchy red apples, spicy wild strawberries and ripe raspberries, streaming out long and true with a line of lemon acidity. The subtlety of long lees age is intricately played, lending only the most gentle brioche, almond meal, honey and toast. Dosage is perfectly played to lift its fruit and its structure. It coasts long and refined on a sea of fine chalk minerality. The consummate apéritif!
95 Points, Tyson Stelzer, champagne.guide
Pol Roger Brut Réserve NV
Pol Roger’s famous ‘White Foil’ is an attractive and refreshing apéritif and the company’s investment in its facilities and fruit sources over the past two decades is now paying strong dividends. Individual parcel vinification preserves fantastic detail, showcasing its components with greater precision than ever.
This is a benchmark Brut Réserve that ranks confidently among the finest yet, all the more incredible in the difficult 2017 season. Projecting a medium straw hue, it strikes an enticing contrast between the vibrant citrus zest, apple and pear that proclaim the vivacity of Pol Roger and the subtle almond meal and brioche of long age. Wonderfully fine salt minerality highlights an excellent, fine, fresh, lively and pure finish that celebrates the elegance and purity of the house. When I commended Laurent d'Harcourt, he responded, 'We are now getting the fruits of what we have been doing in the past 10-15 years.'
94 Points Tyson Stelzer, The Champagne Guide
Louis Roederer Collection 244 NV
The grand contrasts of 244 finds a heightened tension in the 2019 base, and at the same time a seamless coherence. This blend unites all the multifaceted elements that build its tremendous, multidimensional blend matrix with a feeling of micro-engineered precision, bringing together all the disparate universes of citrus, orchard fruits and spice, with the toasty, nutty, nuances of old oak, the cut of malic acidity and the salinity of chalk minerality. Definitive Collection and - as is the ever more apparent way with Collection - it will be an even greater wine at the end of its release cycle than it is now at but the beginning.
95 Points Tyson Stelzer, The Champagne Guide
Taittinger Prélude NV
Taittinger selects its grand cru parcels for Prélude to show the characters of their crus, rather than the mood of the vintage, looking for elegance, finesse, delicacy and structure, reserving those with more power for its Comtes de Champagne Rosé. ‘This is purposely a cuvée of finesse and subtlety,’ says Damien Le Sueur. It is always entirely from a single year, though disappointingly its vintage is never declared, ‘as we don’t aim to show the vintage effect’. Le Sueur describes the vision as the opposite to Bollinger (who contrast warm south-facing pinot with cool, north-facing chardonnay). ‘We are looking for a fresh, easy-drinking style, so we source from the cooler pinot crus of Ambonnay, Verzenay, Verzy and, most of all, Mailly-Champagne, the signature of the structure of the wine,’ he says. Taittinger is privileged to large holdings in Mailly-Champagne. ‘We are big fans of this cooler village, and we love its structure and freshness – a pinot of chardonnay freshness yet pinot structure.’
Boasting a pale, bright straw hue, this is a Prélude that unites tension with impressive depth, concentration and drive. Its grand cru mandate is on grand display in a wonderful juxtaposition of fruit depth and structural confidence of pronounced, fine chalk mineral texture. A panoply of fruit spans everything from the tension of lemon and grapefruit to the crunch of beurre bosc pear and apple, the succulence of white peach, the tang of strawberries and the exoticism of fig. Time has brought brioche and almond nougat, softening its mineral definition with creamy mouth feel. Exacting line and length confirm another outstanding Prélude.
95 Points, Tyson Stelzer, The Champagne Guide
Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label Brut NV
Yellow Label is a towering monument to just what can be achieved at an astronomical scale of production, with fanatical attention to every minute detail – and no small thanks to tremendous depth and breadth of what must be the greatest reserve wine program on earth. The wonderful 2019 base continues the noble trajectory of refinement that Yellow Label has traced over recent decades, and here in the commencement of an exciting new era, a grand tribute to the wizardry of Didier Mariotti in his first blend, presenting pinot noir of grace, poise and refinement, less reliant on dosage than ever. A pale straw hue heralds a Yellow Label of red apple, strawberry and raspberry fruit, energised with pink grapefruit freshness, a tribute to the fruit purity of the warm 2019 season, with a backbone of bright acidity and a foundation of fine chalk minerality. This is the finest and most elegant I have ever seen Yellow Label, and for all it represents, nothing short of a triumph.
92 Points, Tyson Stelzer, The Champagne Guide
Charles Heidsieck Rosé NV
Charles Rosé is crafted from younger reserves than Brut Réserve to maintain its youthful fruit focus, so it is no surprise that it does not stand the test of time on cork as confidently as Brut Réserve or Blanc de Blancs. Two years post-disgorgement it has evolved to a medium copper salmon hue and a place where its primary fruits have subsided to a mood of candied orange rind, persimmon, ginger and liquorice, with a little phenolic grip on the finish.
93 Points, Tyson Stelzer, The Champagne Guide
Bollinger Rosé NV
The first surprise of this cuvée is its exuberant lift of captivatingly fragrant bouquet, like nothing I have ever seen from Bollinger Rosé NV before, an exquisite explosion of rose petal, musk, cherry liqueur and cherry kernel that defines the very essence of southern Montagne pinot noir. The second is that the palate delivers all of the same, set against a phenomenal backdrop of super fine, emphatically chalk-defined mineral texture. This contrast of fragrance and minerality delivers a freshness that transcends Bollinger, and yet delivers every bit of the deep-set spice and creamy texture that we expect. An absolute phenomenon, radiant in its magnificent medium salmon hue, and drop-dead gorgeous.
97 Points, Tyson Stelzer, The Champagne Guide
Charles Heidsieck Brut Réserve NV
This is an entry cuvée with the confidence and integrity to be cellared long after its release, and never have I seen this more profoundly declared than in this bottle. This is a Charles in a magnificent place, with an air of sweet pipe smoke and truffley complexity and layers of evocative complexity. It transcends its base vintage with an energy and vibrancy that will hold its confidence for some years yet. A grand testimony to the longevity of Charles Brut Réserve.
96 Points, Tyson Stelzer, The Champagne Guide
Bollinger Special Cuvée NV
The complexity and richness of Special Cuvée is unparalleled among the entry non-vintage blends of every Champagne house, short of ascending to the mesosphere of Krug…The generous, creamy texture of barrels and lees magnificently contrasts the pronounced fine, salty chalk minerality of esteemed crus. As brilliant
and rock-solid as ever.
96 Points Tyson Stelzer, The Champagne Guide
Krug Grand Cuvée 171ème NV
The structure and scaffolding of phenolic grip and apple skin texture that defines the warm and generous 2015 harvest have been well tensioned with the cut and drive of cool vintage reserves and malic acid drive. Even on the moment of its release, this is a Grande Cuvée of bite and crunch, with phenolics, acidity and chalk minerality working together harmoniously. There is a note of green pea that is true to the 2015 harvest. It will age very long, sustained equally by phenolics, acidity and chalk minerality.
95 Points Tyson Stelzer, The Champagne Guide
Our Host, Tyson Stelzer
Tyson Stelzer’s status as a wine writer and author continues to soar.
James Halliday
Stelzer is a persuasive new voice… the new kid on the block with a very bright future.
World of Fine Wine, UK
Tyson Stelzer is one of Australia’s youngest, most serious and greatest wine writers.
John Jens Lamont’s Wine Store, Perth
Stelzer continues to baffle world-leading wine reviewers and writers with his depth of knowledge and exceptional palate.
Dan Murphy’s
Of the new generation of Champagne specialists, Tyson Stelzer is certainly one of the most interesting.
Decanter Magazine, UK
Stelzer has been in the game just 15 years but he could well be the next James Halliday, such is his intellect, organisation and communication skills, work ethic, humility and above all his palate.
Wine Business Magazine
tysonstelzer.com
Included with each two tickets - Champagne Guide Edition VII, valued at $120.
The Champagne Guide Edition VII:
The Champagne Guide Edition VII is in a new magnum-sized format! It’s more than 50 percent bigger than the previous edition and more than three times the size of the first five editions, featuring a record 1260 reviews in 1687 tastings from 142 houses across 880 pages and 460,000 words (that’s six average novels!). The book is more than two inches thick and weighs more than a magnum of champagne! This affords more space for more detailed introductions to each house and more in-depth reviews of every cuvée. Louis Roederer alone features 48 cuvées
across 28 pages!
To book tickets to this event click here!