Extended aging on lees allows great traditional-method sparkling wines to move through multiple levels of expression, gaining ever more depth, silkier texture, and intricate layers of umami, toast, and minerality that only time can reveal. Drawn from what remains the coolest grape-growing season on record in our first decades of viticulture, the 2004 Brut Reserve Late Disgorged is a landmark wine in the Benjamin Bridge story and was our first commercial release of Brut Reserve. In this marginal, slow-ripening year, tiny yields and a long, drawn-out autumn delivered base wines of piercing acidity, low alcohol, and remarkable extract, raw material that demanded a prolonged slumber on lees. Years of maturation in bottle deepened the wine’s textural richness and complexity while preserving the electric, maritime backbone that first convinced us Nova Scotia could stand shoulder to shoulder with the world’s great sparkling regions. Today, this cuvée reads as both an inaugural statement of intent and a reference point for all that has followed.