(Wine-Searcher) - The newest vintage of the widow's wine will feature something we haven't seen for an age – oak.

Champagne house Veuve Clicquot has just launched its 2008 vintage, the first vintage for 50 years to use oak-aged wine in the blend.

The 2008 is chef de cave Dominique Demarville's first vintage since he joined Clicquot in 2006 and introduced the idea of oak aging, which has not been practiced since the house turned to full stainless steel for its vintage wines in the 1960s.

The use of oak – just five per cent in this blend – is Demarville's attempt to add "extra breadth and complexity". He is looking for "the spicy notes represented by our old reserve wines" that he can attain in the non-vintage Yellow Label but not in the single-vintage wines.

In 2007 Demarville bought 30 large French oak casks from Clicquot's long-standing coopers François Frères, with the specific aim of oak-aging a proportion of the 2008 vintage.