Bollinger is one of the greats of Champagne, a family firm that stands as a symbol of solidity and endurance in a drinks’ world of change and flux. The uniquely muscular 'Bollinger taste', based on Pinot Noir, is still essentially the same today as it was in 1865 when Joseph-Jacob-Placide (known as Jacques) Bollinger first shipped champagne to England. By the standards of the time, this was a dry champagne of low dosage (sugared liqueur) in contrast to most other houses' champagnes, which were then sweet. The Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, was one of the first devotees of Bollinger's dry champagne.

During the Second World War, the direction of the firm passed at a very difficult time to Madame Jacques Bollinger, on the death of her husband, grandson of the founders. Haunted by her childlessness, 'Tante Lily', as she was known to the family, devoted herself unsparingly to the firm's progress and over the next forty years doubled sales to one million bottles. During this period, she also aquired prime vineyards in the best sites of the Montagne de Reims, bringing Bollinger's holdings to their current extent of 143 hectares. These vineyards, nearly half of which are rated Grand Cru, supply 70% of the firm's needs, allowing Bollinger to ensure an enviable continuity of style.

That style - masculine, mouthfilling and rich - owes a lot to the dominance of Pinot Noir in the champagne grape blend. But the defining touch at Bollinger is that 80% of the harvest (and all the must for vintage wine) is fermented in wooden casks, making the finished champagne deep and complex in flavour and one that lives a distinguished, longer life. For many years, Bollinger has hardly liqueured its wines, the average dosage being half to three-quarters of one per cent.

The non-vintage Special Cuvee is the one champagne in the Bollinger range to be part-fermented in stainless steel, but it is still a full, meaty and minerally mouthful with a mature flavour and good bottle age. This wine is currently made from 60% Pinot Noir, 25% Pinot Meunier and 15% Chardonnay.

The vintage champagne, Grande Annee, is cast in the same mould but with a deeper colour and a richer, more concentrated flavour, owing to the higher proportion of Grand Cru grapes in the blend. Above this is R.D., a wine unique to Bollinger. The term R.D., patented by the House in 1961, means "recently disgorged". This rare champagne, only released in exceptional years, is disgorged off its lees after a minimum of seven years. The longer spell on the lees makes the wine more soft and mellow but also fresher: mature champagne, yet young and vigorous. The 1982 R.D. is still a big framed teenager; the 1979 a delightful, elegant young adult.

The Vieilles Vignes Francaises is the rarest Bollinger champagne. Made entirely from ungrafted, pre-phylloxera Pinot Noir vines in three small lots - the 'Chaud Terre' and 'Clos St Jacques', both in Ay, and the 'Croix Rouge', in Bouzy - this is an extraordinary wine of unforgettable vinosity and depth of character. The power of its flavour is shaped by the traditional practice of growing these old vines close to the ground, the warmth of the soil giving extra sugar and extract to the grapes.

Vieilles Vignes Francaises has only been produced nine times in the last 25 years, and then a mere 3,000 bottles were released in each of those vintages.