Back in my old gig, working over at Mordor for Sauron, I used to work with an importer called William-Harrison, and one of their little gems was a sparkling wine producer from Burgundy called Bailly-Lapierre.  We used to sell a decent amount of them over there, but William-Harrison kinda disappeared and the ability to reload on the Bailly-Lapierre so I assumed it gone.

Fast-forward to a few weeks ago, and my GM here at the Party Source gave me a bottle of the Bailly- Lapierre Chardonnay Cremant de Bourgogne 2002, a real blast from the past so-to-speak.

Bailly-Lapierre reportedly had become the house sparkler at nearly every major Champagne house, the wine stacked in the back that staff and support would imbibe whenever they were thirsty.  I could understand why.  This tiny producer was something of a cult-wine in-the-making, as far as I was concerned.

The Chardonnay 2002 still showed some life to it, possessing a lot of that yeasty, toasty swagger I remembered.  It still had a stone-fruited mousse and still showed nice acidity.  All-in-all, it was a splendid trip down memory lane.  Grade=Outstanding.