Navarre Navarre Souvenir Impérial NV 750ml

This unique expression could win an award for the sheer number of confusing terms on the label. What’s not confusing is the quality of the blend of Grande Champagne vintages from 1958, 1959, 1965 and the early 1970s. Bronze in color, it offers all manner of rancio on the expressive nose of tropical fruit, exotic wood, green banana peel and antique furniture varnish. In the mouth, there’s big, fleshy tropical fruit, balanced by licorice and dark spice and framed by clay and chalky minerality that carries from the midpalate toward the fresh finish, which lingers, with an unexpected kiss of amaro, for a long time.