Discover how L.C prestance by Maison Vendôme beats top Champagnes as Cristal Roderer and Dom Perignon
Extract from John Szabo’s article.
Full version: http://www.winealign.com/articles/2011/12/19/a-big-champagne-showdown-cristal-dom-perignon-taken-on
December 2011, by John Szabo, Master Sommelier*
« It’s not the sort of invitation I usually accept: “come taste my wine against the recognized category leaders”. But today I did exactly just that. The invitation came from John Carlo Meli of Natural Vines importing agency to taste the ultra-luxury champagne brand he represents called L.C. 
Prestance, by Maison Vendôme, against the latest releases of Môet et Chandon’s Dom Pérignon and Roederer’s Crystal in a blind tasting challenge (actually the blind part was my idea). This type of guerilla marketing has been around since the big Paris tasting of 1976 pitting top Bordeaux and Burgundy against the upstarts from California, and probably much longer than that. My issue is that is a rather pointless exercise, at least for the taster. For the marketers, however, it’s golden, since you can’t really loose: coming in second place to the best is still pretty good, and if you win, well, you win.
On top of it all, I am naturally repelled by super-expensive, designer wines created to dispossess the wealthy and bask in the glow of famous stars and fashionistas of all stripes (L.C. Prestance was the official champagne of the Cannes film festival, to give you an idea), so admittedly, I expected the worst. I knew that as the wines were revealed and my reviews examined, there’d be that awkward moment when I’d have to admit that Dom Pérignon and Crystal were much better wines then this parvenue champagne and suggest that he return to the world of real wine and stop chasing ephemeral dreams.
Well, there’s nothing like a little dose of blind tasting to crush your cherished preconceived notions. Le Prestance was more than good. It was extraordinary, clearly the best wine on the table, in a line up of obviously very good wines. I did my best not to try and guess which was which during the tasting, but I certainly wasn’t pegging wine #2, my clear favorite, as Le Prestance, which is what it turned out to be.
While the 2002 Dom Pérignon was still strong, it was a relative disappointment. I was pleased that my review, and score, posted in May on WineAlign was identical, at least I’m consistent. The 2004 Crystal was nothing short of excellent, but L.C. Prestance had an extra gear, and extra dimension, a pleasant surprise…
* Master Sommelier. There 147 Professionnals who have earned the title of Master Sommelier as part of the American chapter since the organization’s inception, of those, 124 are men and 23 are women. There are 230 professionals worldwide who have received the title of Master Sommelier since 1977.