How do 2004 champagnes compare with 2002s?

No one could be more obsessed by mainstream champagne, preferably at prestige cuvée level, than Nick Baker of specialist champagne retailer The Finest Bubble. He is always dreaming up themes for blind tastings and last month’s was a blind tasting of pairs of prestige cuvées, a 2004 and a 2002. This was a bit of a dream tasting with all wines pretty superlative.

He wanted to test his theory that the 2004s are rather underrated and that we give too much attention to the famous 2002s. It didn’t quite...