Laurent-Perrier Héritage 75cl

A Champagne made entirely from reserve wines, with nothing from the current harvest in it at all. Laurent-Perrier released Héritage in 2024 as the first Brut built that way, and it's a genuinely odd idea when you think about it: reserve wines are normally the seasoning in a blend, a few percent stirred in for depth. Here they are the entire wine.

The blend runs 55% Chardonnay to 45% Pinot Noir across forty crus, half of them Grand Cru, and spends a minimum of four years in bottle. Dosage is kept low because it doesn't need much — reserve wines have already lost their sharp corners to time, so there's less for the sugar to smooth over.

The age shows immediately. White gold in the glass, then lemon and white peach on the nose, opening into orchard fruit and citrus zest on the palate with a note of floral honey on the finish. Rounder and more composed than the standard La Cuvée, without ever tipping into heaviness or anything oxidative. The house's precision is still steering.

How to Serve

8–10°C. Give it a proper glass — a white wine glass or a generous tulip. Pour it and leave it a minute; it gains in the glass.

Where to Drink It

Wiltons on Jermyn Street, which is exactly the register this Champagne belongs in. The River Cafe, for lunch by the water. Dandy at Maltby Street if you want the same quality of drinking with considerably less starch.

Food Pairings

Turbot with a butter sauce is the obvious answer and also the correct one. If you'd rather stay off fish, go for mushrooms and pastry — a mushroom tart, or a properly made chicken pie — which meets the honeyed, faintly nutty side of the wine head-on.