Champagne – A Wine For&nbsp;All Seasons

As the end of year holidays
approach, it’s only natural to start thinking a little bit more about bubbly. In
reality, though, Champagne is a wine for all seasons.

Champagne continues to be one of
the most exciting regions in the world. This year I tasted a number of wines
and producers that are new to me. The explosion of small, estate-bottled Grower
Champagnes is one of the biggest reasons the region is so full of discovery.
These small, family-run properties used to sell their grapes to the big houses,
but as those contracts expire, the younger winemakers representing the new
generation are choosing to make their own wines, echoing a trend towards
estate-bottled wines that started in Burgundy and a few other places in the
1980s.<img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1385155972568-SelosseDosageTrials+-+article.jpg"> 

[Above: Tasting dosage trials for Anselme Selosse’s six lieu-dit Champagnes, March
2013]

What are the differences between
the Chardonnays of Le Mesnil, Cramant, Oger and Avize? Or the Pinots from Aÿ,
Mareuil, Ambonnay and Bouzy? What are the attributes of 100% Pinot Meunier
wines? What is the potential of emerging areas like the Côte de Sézanne and the
Aube, which in many ways resembles Chablis more than Champagne? Up until a few
years ago, these were difficult discussions to have. There just weren’t enough
reference points. Sure, you could taste the vins
clairs as Krug, Roederer or any of the big houses that source fruit and/or
wine from those villages, but there were only a handful of growers bottling
their own wines that were worth following. Today, there are dozens, and that
number continues to increase each year. The growers, used to selling fruit, are
themselves just starting to learn about their own terroirs, giving birth to numerous single-vineyard ‘lieu-dit’ wines that give us the
opportunity to explore dimensions in Champagne in ways previously not possible.

At the other end of the spectrum,
the grands marques are hardly resting
on their laurels. Winemakers like Richard Geoffroy at Dom Pérignon
and Jean-Baptiste Lecaillon at Roederer are pushing the envelope, and pushing it
hard. Geoffroy’s recent Dom Pérignon Rosés are hardly the staid, somewhat
conservative wines of the past. The best recent vintages are deep and vinous to
the core. Grower Champagne in drag, if you will. At Roederer, Lecaillon is one
of the most meticulous, inquisitive and experimental of the grand marque winemakers I know. Over the
years, Lecaillon has put on exhaustive vin
clair tastings that explore numerous variables in farming and winemaking,
including conventional versus biodynamic farming, malolactic versus blocked
malolactic fermentations, oak versus steel fermentations, and of course the
different shades of expression in Pinot Noir and Chardonnay across numerous
sites. Other houses, like Taittinger and Dom Ruinart are perhaps a bit less
risk-taking, but their wines have found a new level of consistency over the
last few years. In short, grand marque Champagne
is super-exciting these days. Of course, prices for the best tête
de cuvées
are high, but in my view those prices are largely justified by the age-ability of
the best wines, something that remains the Achilles heel of most grower
Champagnes. When buying Champagne to cellar more than 20 years, there is only
one way to go, and that is grand marque.
Next to the world’s other great wines, the reality is that Champagne remains
underpriced, which is one of the reason so many savvy collectors have been
paying attention to these wines for years.

<img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1385156529931-Cristal+-+article.jpg"> &nbsp;[Above: Tasting the component wines and final
blend of Roederer's 2012&nbsp;Cristal, March 2013]

Why Disgorgement Dates Matter

I want you to know you are buying the
same wines I taste, review and recommend. That is pretty easy to do with
vintage Champagnes, but next to impossible to do with NV Champagnes unless the
wines are clearly labeled and differentiated from release to release. Without
some type of clear identifier there is no way for consumers to know if the wine
they are buying is the same wine I tasted, a ridiculous state of affairs that
exists with no other wine.

Ideally, a NV Champagne back label
would indicate the base vintage (an even greater indication of the qualities of
a given wine) plus the disgorgement date, both of which are helpful to
consumers. Let me be clear. Newer disgorgements aren’t better or more desirable
than older disgorgements, they are just different. There are times when older
disgorgements are preferable, as the wines have had more time on the cork to
recover post-bottling and to develop nuance. That was certainly the case with
the two Krug Grand Cuvées I tasted for this article.

As has been my
practice for several years, I only review non-vintage wines with a disgorgement
date or some other easily visible, consumer-friendly labeling, such as the ID
codes producers have begun to introduce over the last few years. I am happy to
report that the number of wineries that now include information on disgorgement
dates, base vintages and/or other information on their NV Champagnes is
growing, which is great for the consumer. Over the last year, Krug has added an
ID code to the back labels of NV wines which can be entered into the Krug
website for more information on the wines. This year, all of the wines in Becky
Wasserman's ‘Champagne et Villages’ portfolio listed disgorgement dates. These
are both examples of the direction Champagne labeling is headed, and it is a
big positive for the consumer.

<img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1385156025833-Bouchard+-+article.jpg"> [Above:
Cédric Bouchard’s La Haute-Lemblée&nbsp;Chardonnay parcel, March 2012]

And More…

For more on Champagne, readers
might enjoy this <a target="_blank" href="http://vinousmedia.com/multimedia/picking-the-right-champagne-glass-dec-2012">short
video</a> on choosing the right glassware plus thoughts on <a target="_blank" href="http://vinousmedia.com/multimedia/agrapart-fils-new-releases-nov-2013">Agrapart</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://vinousmedia.com/multimedia/bouchard-new-releases-nov-2013">Cédric
Bouchard</a> and some of my other favorite <a target="_blank" href="http://vinousmedia.com/multimedia/grower-champagne-new-releases-nov-2013">grower Champagnes</a>. Other recent articles
include our <a target="_blank" href="http://vinousmedia.com/articles/champagne-2013-the-spring-preview-may-2013">Spring
2013 Preview</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://vinousmedia.com/articles/dosage-trials-chez-selosse-mar-2013">Dosage
Trials Chez Selosse</a>,&nbsp; <a target="_blank" href="http://vinousmedia.com/articles/cedric-bouchard-in-the-cellar-jun-2013">Cédric
Bouchard: In the Cellar</a> and <a target="_blank" href="http://vinousmedia.com/articles/focus-on-grower-champagne-jun-2013">Focus
on Grower Champagne</a>.

With the holidays right around the
corner, I would like to wish all of our Vinous readers a very Happy Holidays
and healthy 2014.

Note:
All of the wines for this article were tasted in fall 2013. A number of
producers do not have new releases in the market, including Bollinger, Dom Pérignon, Dom Ruinart, Moët &amp; Chandon and Salon. Reviews for
the most recent releases for all of these houses are available in the Vinous
database.

[Cover:
Krug shot during the March 2013 snowstorm]

-- Antonio Galloni

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