Champagne & Sparkling Wine Information

The Champagne business is dominated by very large companies which often own a stable of brands.

For example, The Louis Vuitton-Moet-Hennessy company owns Moet & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot, Ruinart, Mercier and Krug Champagne brands.  
Pernod-Ricard owns the Mumm and Perrier-Jouet brands.   
   
A large firm few people have heard of is called Vranken or Vranken-Pommery and they own the Pommery label along with Heidsieck Monopole and Charles Lafitte.

What was called Marne et Champagne changed to be called Lanson International and today it's Lanson-BCC and they own the brands Lanson, Boizel, Besserat de Bellefon, De Venoge, Philipponnat, Chanonine Freres and Alexandre Bonnet.  The firm also makes bubbly for private label brands, as well.
 

Some smaller firms have purchased neighbors, either for diversification, additional distribution or to acquire prime vineyard sites.  Bollinger owns the firm of Ayala, for example.  
The family owning the Laurent Perrier brand of Champagne also owns Delamotte and the luxury brand called Salon.

Many of the large brands have little interest in making top quality wines.  They're run by "business" people or investment types who spend their days crunching numbers and evaluating "turnover."  Marketing "experts" also seem to have significant sway, with winemakers, enologists and viticulture crews being of secondary importance in the hierarchy of things.

These companies often make very good luxury bottlings and seem content with less-than-excellent quality at the profitable entry level while excusing their poor winemaking performance with a high quality, smaller production wine on the high end.  Of course, Moet's Dom Perignon cuvee is made in humungous quantities (and they won't divulge the number of bottles made annually because they're embarrassed to do so).  And, yes, Dom Perignon is often a really good Champagne.

Over the past decade, or so, we've seen greater interest in smaller brands of Champagnes.  There's a segment of the market called "Grower's Champagnes" and these are the work of "mom & pop" vineyard owners who also vinify the wine and turn it into bubbly.  

One of the weaknesses of these brands is that they typically have vineyard holdings in a handful of sites (or fewer) and so their wines often display but one "note" of terroir.  Large companies tout they can draw upon numerous sites to create a more complex base wine with which to turn into bubbly.  
On the other hand, some growers have really fine terroir and viticultural practices which allows them to showcase the "somewhere-ness" of their bubblies.

The grower Champagnes usually cost less than the big brands at the cellar door, but an inefficiency in distribution (such as numerous middlemen) makes these wines a bit pricey when they hit the shelf in the U.S.  For example, a good grower's Champagne might cost 12 to 18 Euros at the cellar door for private customers (and this includes their value added, VAT, tax).  Yet these wines retail in our market for $50-$70!!!  Ouch!!!

Our shop doesn't carry the mainstream brands of Mumm, Moet or Perrier-Jouet brands, apart from the deluxe bottlings.  The quality at the entry level of these brands can equate to the quality of a fast food hamburger.  And if you have taste for good Champagne, you'll find yourself asking the question shouted by the late actress Clara Peller:  "Where's the beef?"

A few importers with whom we deal, buy directly from the grower and this allows us to have some top quality, artisan brands at sensible price levels.  
The large brands have devoted a lot of money to their marketing campaigns and this explains the high price level of some well-publicized Champagnes.  For many consumers, these names are a safer choice in purchasing.  Guests who may not recognize (or even appreciate) an artisan brand find comfort in a name they know and know to cost a premium price.

SOME CHAMPAGNES WE LIKE

CHARLES HEIDSIECK

"Chuck" used to come to the U.S. regularly to sell the Champagne that had his name.  The firm was founded in 1851 and things started off nicely for Heidsieck and his brother-in-law partner Ernest Henriot.  He wound up in jail in New Orleans when Unionists found a letter from French manufacturers with offers to supply clothing to the Confederate army.   That took some fizz out of his Champagne!  The firm managed to survive and Charles got out of jail after a four month-stint.  

It was run by the Heidsiecks until 1976 when an Henriot took over.  In 1985 the company was sold to the Remy-Martin organization which owned Krug and Piper-Heidsieck at the time.  Remy found itself in a financial bind and sold off Krug and these days they're shopping around Charles Heidsieck, too.

This was a company which had made standard quality wines for many years.  In the 1990s they hired a dynamic "chef de caves" named Daniel Thibault and he had a major impact on the winemaking and quality level.  Thibault passed away a few years ago, but his influence on the quality and style of Charles Heidsieck Champagnes remains.

The key to their success, we understand, was the use of "reserve" wines in assembling the base wine.  Also, they continue to mature the wine for an extended period on the spent yeast and this contributes a measure of weight and intensity to the wine.  Open a bottle of Charles Heidsieck's Brut Reserve alongside the bubblies of Clicquot, Mumm, Moet, etc., and you'll immediately sense the difference this wine has:  lots of toasty, yeasty, "bready" notes compared to appley, fruity, cidery aromas in the others.  The Brut Reserve of Charles Heidsieck is also quite dry.

In various blind-tastings of non-vintage Brut Champagnes, Charles Heidsieck has performed magnificently.  I think it's won five or six different blind-tastings in which we've included it!

At one point, the Charles Heidsieck "non vintage" Brut was designated with a sticker such as those above, reading "Mis en Cave" and noting the year in which the bottles were placed in the cellar for the secondary bottle fermentation.  On the back of the bottle, there was a notation of the disgorgement, featuring the general time of the year and the precise year the bottle was disgorged.  This was a most noble effort, but has been partially abandoned.  
Charles Heidsieck was calling the bluff of so many Champagne houses, virtually all of whom make the assertion that their non-vintage Brut bubbly is actually aged three years in the cellar.  

Today the Charles Heidsieck bottles simply have the disgorging year on the back of the bottle.  We currently have Champagne which has spent more than a year "on the cork."  

 

We currently have a fairly yeasty, toasty and very dry and rather pale "Rose" Champagne from Charles Heidsieck.  It's a 1999 vintage and more "Champagne" than "Rose."

The 1995 Blanc de Millénaires is a bit unusual for Charles Heidsieck, since they tend to make big, 'robust' Champagne.  This is leaner in terms of body, but still nicely intense with respect to the toasty, yeasty notes.  It's matured for an extended time period on the spent yeast and is remarkably fine and delightfully dry.

 

Currently in stock:  CHARLES HEIDSIECK Brut Reserve SALE $39.99 (750ml)  
and half bottles SALE $26.99
CHARLES HEIDSIECK 1999 Brut Rose (List $105)  SALE $89.99
CHARLES HEIDSIECK 1995 Blanc de Millénaires (List $200)  SALE Presently Sold Out

PIERRE MONCUIT

There are some remarkable Champagnes which come from the town of Le Mesnil.  Krug makes one called Clos du Mesnil and it'll set you back nearly $800.  Salon's recent vintage lives in the neighborhood of $300 a bottle, making a bottle of Pierre Moncuit's delightful bubbly a bargain at $39.99!

The domaine was founded in the late 1880s by Pierre Moncuit and his wife Odile.  Today you'll find the brother and sister team of Yves and Nicole running the place.  He takes care of the sales side of the business and she's the winemaker.  Nicole's daughter Valerie is now active in the business, too.

Valerie & Nicole in the Moncuit vineyards...

They have something like 19 hectares of vineyards and these are quite mature, much like the winemaker and her brother.  In Champagne, you see, vineyards are routinely uprooted and replanted, as growers want vigor and tonnage.  The notion of "old vines" being anything special is a bit foreign in Champagne.
Yet the Moncuit team has vineyards which are typical 40+ years of age and some parcels, from which they source their special deluxe cuvee, are close to a hundred years of age.


The cellar at Moncuit...

Magnums!

Their father made those bottles...and they still have some of these ancient treasures in the cellar...

Nicole is a bit quiet and reserved.  She reminds me a bit of winemakers such as the late Joe Heitz of Napa or Bruno Giacosa of Piemonte:  perfection-oriented and confident that her wine is of excellent quality and if you don't like it, that's YOUR problem, not hers.

The wines of Moncuit are a bit particular and we find the house style to be much to our taste.  The wines feature finesse and yet they are complex and profound.  They are not "big," nor are the Moncuit Champagnes aimed at those who are just getting on the Champagne "bicycle" and who need "training wheels."

While many Champagne houses seek to make a wine that's consistent from year to year, Moncuit varies from one year to the next.  Many producers keep a stock of reserve wines, blending their base wine to achieve a consistent or standardized product.  Nicole does not.
She makes a base wine for each product and it is solely the wine of one year's harvest.  Whether you're buying a vintage-dated Champagne or their non-vintage bottlings, each comes entirely from one year.

The base wines are no aged in wood and though the wines usually undergo a malolactic fermentation, they remain laser-point "fine" and really crisp.  Part of this is because they use a low dosage to the wines and they are quite dry.

We especially enjoy the Cuvee Pierre Moncuit-Delos, as it's a Grand Cru wine from vineyards in Le Mesnil.  The wine is tangy and rather dry on the palate (they don't use much of a sweetening dosage...less than most, in fact) and shows some of the stony/chalky notes of its vineyard site.  We find it mildly yeasty and very 'fine.'

The 2002 Vintage Brut is similarly styled, but it seems to really shine with additional time in the bottle and aging "on the cork."  Too bad few consumers think to set aside bottles of Champagne.

The top of the line is the Cuvee Nicole, a wine from vineyards planted when Nicole's parents were young adults.  The wine has a nicely toasty/yeasty note with a touch of an earthy tone and some white flower fragrances.  It's also quite fine on the palate and a special treat if you're at all an aficionado of good bubbly.

Currently in stock: PIERRE MONCUIT "Cuvee Pierre Moncuit-Delos" $39.99
PIERRE MONCUIT 2002 Vintage Brut $69.99
PIERRE MONCUIT Cuvee Nicole $99.99

ALFRED GRATIEN

The name Alfred Gratien is relatively unknown to most wine drinkers, but it's a highly respected name to Champagne aficionados.

We recall tasting Gratien Champagnes ages ago and they were remarkably good...close to those of Krug and Bollinger at that point in time.  Then something happened, they lost their way and disappeared from the market.  

They have been around for several years and we would buy a bottle, here and there, to see how they were doing.  Good, but not grand.  Well, lately (at this writing in 2011), they back to making some exceptionally good Champagnes.

The winery is a bit of a throwback to a simpler time.  The juice of their grapes is fermented in oak, a practice larger abandoned these days in favor of the more cost-effective stainless steel. 

 

 

We've heard Gratien does its secondary fermentation in bottle, stoppering the bottles with cork closures rather than crown caps;  at least, we understand they do this for their top Champagnes.

 

The cellar master's father, grandfather and great grandfather all held the same position before him.  Nicolas Jaeger is the fellow who runs the cellar at Gratien and kudos to him for making such splendid Champagnes these days!

They clearly have a handle on assembling the base wines.  Fruit from a variety of regions is incorporated to create a complex still wine.  From there it's bottled with sugar and yeast and off it goes into the cellar.

The non-vintage wines are quite nice, but it's the vintage and deluxe bottlings which have our attention.

The top bottling is called Cuvee Paradis and it's a non-vintaged wine.  It's incredibly complex and very fine.  I purchased a bottle to try with some wine industry pals and it was a wine which stopped the conversation as people had a sniff and a taste.  It was so good, I purchased a bottle of the Cuvee Paradis Rose and we were delighted by it, as well.

 

If you are looking for a remarkably fine Champagne and don't mind not putting some of the more famous, well-marketed trophy bottles on your table, consider splurging for a bottle of the Cuvee Paradis.  If they're paying attention to what's in their glass and not to what's on the label, this wine is sure to be a winner.

 

Currently in stock:  ALFRED GRATIEN "CUVEE PARADIS"  $129.99

 

 

ERIC RODEZ

Our colleague, Bob Gorman, was able to visit the cellars of the learned scholar, Mayor of the town of Ambonnay and Champagne maker, Eric Rodez.

This little estate produces a wine that's quite different from the Pierre Moncuit Champagne written about earlier on this web page.  

They're located in the Montagne de Reims and Ambonnay is quite famous for Pinot Noir.

Rodez has an interesting history, which goes a long way in explaining his particular style of Champagne.  He spent time in the Rhone Valley, Beaujolais and Burgundy when he was getting his feet wet.   He also spent a year working at Krug, so he has a good perspective on that style of deluxe Champagne.

In fact, when  we visited, he mentioned having been affiliated for some time with Moet.  "My business sense came from this experience, but my Champagne making philosophies were shaped by my time with Krug."

The family has been in Ambonnay for many generations, but it's relatively recently that they've been vinifying their own fruit and making their own bubbly.  Pinot Noir dominates the plantings, though they do have more than 40% of the estate devoted to Chardonnay.  No Pinot Meunier, as that is not considered to be of "grand cru" quality.

 

 

 

There are numerous small parcels of vineyards and Rodez vinifies each one individually.  A significant percentage of base wines are vinified in wood.  Rodez prefers to assemble a complex blend comprised of numerous lots of wines.  

 

We currently have his Cuvee des Crayeres, a blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.  The blend features approximately 40%, or so, of older reserve wine.  We like its toasty, creamy notes and it reminds us a bit of Krug Champagnes from the "old days."

Currently in stock:  ERIC RODEZ "Cuvee des Crayeres"  $42.99

AGRAPART et FILS

The name "Agrapart" might seem to some people as that of some agricultural conglomerate, but, in fact, it's the name of a prominent wine family in the town of Avize.  

The Agrapart family has been involved with Champagne production since the late 1800s.  Things were a bit rocky with the Depression and World War II, but in the 1950s the name resurfaced when Pierre Agrapart began vinifying his own wine and making Champagnes of note.    Pierre was a stickler for quality as he realized it was the key to success.  Today his sons Pascal and Fabrice tend the nearly 10 hectares of vineyards along with the cellar.

 

The vineyards are situated in very chalky soils and are planted with Chardonnay,  They have something like 62 parcels of vineyards and some are quite old.  In fact, the average age of Agrapart's vines is around 40 years!

We've been fans since the late 1990s.  Each parcel or batch is vinified separately and kept in neutral oak, having been fermented with indigenous yeasts.

They purchased a marvelous horse some years ago and named it Venus.  The horse pulls the plow, as they farm some vineyard sites in a very old fashioned manner.  Many of the neighbors thought the Agrapart's were out of their minds having returned to such an antiquated farming system, but the results of this cultivation are yielding top quality results.

And now they make a very special Champagne called Venus.  Only a few hundred cases are made in top years.

Pascal in the cellar.


Pascal and his Pop, Pierre.

There are two bottlings of which we especially appreciate.

One is called "Les Sept Crus" as it comes from seven sites in the Cotes des Blancs and it's, of course, entirely Chardonnay.  The wine comes from two harvests and they typically employ a full malolactic fermentation for the base wine.  Even with this, you'll still find the wine to be extremely dry, but not it a shrill manner.  It's crisp and clean all the way through...a sheer delight.

Another bottling, called "Terroirs" comes from four Grand Cru sites.  Same basic recipe as the 7 Crus...two harvests...wood-aged wine (but not for the oak character)...aged four years "en tirage" and its low dosage allows the terroir and minerality to shine brightly.  Very dry and crisp.  

They make a couple of other bottlings, which we can special order for you.

 

Currently in stock:  "LES SEPT CRUS"  $36.99
TERROIRS  Currently out of stock

 

The Bollinger name is synonymous with Champagne.

It's also got a wonderful history with the debonair secret agent, James Bond.

The firm has been family operated since its founding in 1829.  One of the great characters and ambassadors for Champagne was Lily Bollinger.  Her husband was a fighter pilot in World War I and he'd taken over the firm when his father died in 1918.  He passed away in 1941 and Lily ran the company during a very difficult period, as one might imagine.

There's a marvelous quotation attributed to this remarkable woman:

Lily came up with the idea of what is now called "RD" Champagne:  Recently Disgorged.  This was a Champagne given extended aging on the spent yeast before being disgorged and having the yeast removed.  

A few years ago, in 2008, the family entrusted the firm to a non-family member:  Jerome Philipon.  So far, so good.  They still have a marvelous commitment to producing top notch Champagne.

At a time when some Champagne firms were turning out massive quantities of rather ordinary fizz, the head of Bollinger, Christian Bizot, issued a "charter of ethics" for the brand.

Seeing that some of its competitors were simply buying bottles of pre-made Champagne and slapping their label on them, Bizot's charter guaranteed that all bottles of Bollinger Champagne were, in fact, made by Bollinger.  What a concept!

He proclaimed to give precedence to grapes from Grand Cru and Premier cru sites and that his Champagnes would be based on Pinot Noir.  He also had other ideals, such as fermentation in oak, extended aging on the lees (not merely meeting the minimum aging requirements as did many of his well-marketed competitors) and using a lower than allowed dosage.  Of course, you see, he was appealing to Champagne purists, not those who saw only the name "Champagne" and not the brand which had produced this vaunted sparkling wine.

The company today seems to continue making really good, very reliable bubbly.  We might enjoy other brands of Champagne on a more regular basis, often because those wines cost a bit less and provide good quality, too, but Bollinger has been a trustworthy name for decades.

The Champagne often has been a part of the various James Bond spy films, a marvelous bit of publicity for Bollinger.

The company owns 163 hectares of vineyards these days. More than 80% are in Grand Cru and Premier cru level sites.  They've spent a significant amount of money in 2009 to renovate and modernize their winemaking facilities and aging cellars.

Their entry level wine is called "Special Reserve" and this is typically something like 60% Pinot Noir, 25% Chardonnay and 15% Pinot Meunier.  The wine is always fairly toasty on the nose and quite dry on the palate.  If you wish to easily see the difference between good quality bubbly and plonk, open a bottle of this alongside something such as Moet et Chandon's entry level bottling.  You should see a world of difference and if you have taste for good Champagne, you'll certainly prefer the Bollinger.  But, as we often say when it comes to wine, "Your mileage may vary."

There's a nice, dry, elegant Rose Champagne...this tends to be overlooked by many, but it's quite a good bottle of Champagne which happens to have a slight pink/copper color.

Then there's the Grand Année Champagne.
Of course, this is not produced every vintage...just top years and it's given extended aging on the lees.  They usually go for something like 5 years maturation on the spent yeast.
Pinot Noir accounts, typically, for about 2/3s of the base wine, with Chardonnay making up the rest.  No Pinot Meunier in this wine.
We find it to be, generally, a cut above the vintage-dated bottlings from brands such as Roederer or Clicquot, for example.

The "R.D." Champagne is, essentially, the Grande Année Champagne with extended time in the bottle before disgorging.  These remarkable sparkling wines might be cellared for 8 (on the low end) to 20 years.  

Currently in stock:  BOLLINGER "SPECIAL RESERVE" BRUT  SALE $54.99 (750ml)
BOLLINGER "SPECIAL RESERVE" BRUT 1/2 bottles (List $34)  SALE $28.99
BOLLINGER "SPECIAL RESERVE" BRUT magnums  (List $180) SALE $149.99
BOLLINGER "SPECIAL RESERVE" BRUT 3 liter (List $315)  SALE $279.99

BOLLINGER 1999 GRANDE ANNÉE (List $145)  SALE $129.99

BOLLINGER Non Vintage ROSE (List $135)  SALE $89.99

BOLLINGER 1997 R.D.  (List $300)  SALE $259.99

 

RENE GEOFFROY

The Geoffroy family is a small, family winery situated in the Marne Valley.  They have vineyards in the village of Cumieres, a place where Pinot Noir seems to do especially well.

The winery is now located in the town of Ay and it's a new gravity-flow designed winery to allow for a more gentle handling of their base wines.  The first harvest in the new digs was that of 2008.

We understand they have something like 14 hectares of vineyards, mostly in Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, but with a small amount of Chardonnay, too.  There's even one patch where they're cultivating not only these three "normal" varieties, but the "forgotten" varieties of Petit Meslier and Arbanne (you might also find some Pinot Blanc here and there in old Champagne vineyards).

The Geoffroy family makes a full range of Champagnes (and even a red table wine), but it's their spectacular Rose Champagne of which we are so fond.  The wine is typically made entirely from Pinot Noir.  Sometimes there's a bit of Pinot Meunier in the base wine, but unlike so many rose-colored Champagnes, it's not a Chardonnay-based wine with a small addition of red wine to get the color "just so."   Geoffroy is a fanatic about making the wine as a delightfully pink-colored wine and they seem to get it right every year.  
The reason so many vintners prefer to make the wine from Chardonnay and blend in a bit of red wine is they wish to avoid the base wine from having tannin.  The astringency from tannin combined with the carbon dioxide would make the wine have the shrillness of fingernails being dragged along a chalkboard.

But Geoffroy seems to have perfected the recipe and we've enjoyed this wine, year after year.
The juice spends two days or two and a half days in contact with the grape skins.  This produces a wine of immense Pinot fruit and the color is beautiful, as well.

Geoffroy, on a visit to San Francisco some years ago, mentioned that he "makes rose first and then turns it into Champagne."  The notion is that Geoffroy strives to make a wine that's bright, fresh and oh-so-fruity, rather than aim for a classically yeasty, biscuity Champagne which happens to have some pink color.   As a result, the aging of the wine "en tirage" is relatively short as they want to showcase the grape.

A malolactic fermentation is blocked, too, as they want to retain as much 'snap' and zesty acidity in the wine as possible.  This is a "Brut" Champagne and the wine finishes dry on the palate.  It's become rather popular and when the local importer receives the latest release, it seems to vanish rather quickly.

Currently in stock:  RENE GEOFFROY BRUT ROSE (list $74)  SALE $64.99 (750ml bottles)
RENE GEOFFROY BRUT ROSE $34.99 (375ml bottles)

 

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    Last modified: February 20,  2012