Answers to Champagne quiz #2

See last post on 7/1/17 for answers:

1] Which wine grower has had the largest impact in Champagne since Dom Perignon? Tip: he used wild yeasts for primary fermentation, refused to use sugar prior to fermentation, tried to avoid using sulphur and other additives that might compromise the unique character of the grapes and employed a solera system for the main cuvee among other quality control choices.

2] Who invented sparkling wine?

3] Name the 4 regions of Champagne.

4] What style and varietal is each region primarily known for?

5] Name the 3 ways rose champagne is made.

6] Which house is the oldest Champagne house?

7] Which winery is the oldest in Champagne?

8] What is a "Paris Pint?

Cheers,
Blake

You are cruel
And I didn’t do as bad as I thought on the first one, so I’ll shame myself again

1. Selosse
2. Monks, supposedly DP, but that is a more urban legend than not.
3. Valle de Marne, Cotes de Blancs and Cote de Sezanne and Montagne de Reims, but doesn’t Aube count???
4. I’m tired, I’ll answer tomorrow
5. Press, Saignee and Oeil de Perdrix
6. Ruinart
7. Clicquot
8. Champagne and Cider

Vallee de la Marne…

And no, Aube is the next level of specificity, not a sub-region.

1] Which wine grower has had the largest impact in Champagne since Dom Perignon?
No clue.

2] Who invented champagne?
The legend: Dom Perignon The reality: In 1662 English scientist Christopher Merret said English wine makers were already making sparkling wine. But that’s not technically Champagne, since it’s not from the correct region.

3] Name the 4 regions of Champagne.
WineFolly says there are five: Montagne de Reims, Côte des Blancs, Vallée de la Marne, Côte des Sézanne, The Aube (aka Côte des Bar)

4] What style and varietal is each region primarily known for?
Montagne de Reims: Mostly Pinot Noir, many tête de cuvée wines from major Champagne houses come from here.
Côte des Blancs: Mostly Chardonnay. Chalk-based soils produce wine with higher acidity. Wines are elegant and racey.
Vallée de la Marne: Mostly Pinot Meunier, a grape known for its fruity and unctuous flavors.
Côte des Sézanne: Mostly Chardonnay with soils of both chalk and marl. Wines are aromatic with less acidity than Côte des Blancs.
The Aube (aka Côte des Bar): Mostly Pinot Noir in marl soils, aromatic wines with less acidity
http://winefolly.com/review/champagne-map-infographic/


5] Name the 3 ways rose champagne is made.

1. “Champagne is usually white because the flesh and juice inside red grapes are free of pigment, so once the grapes are pressed and removed from the skins, the final product is white. In the Champagne region, many of these red wine grapes are harvested to produce still red wines, which are then added to the sparkling wine to create a lightly pigmented sparkling rosé. Though light in color, these wines are often more powerful in flavor than your regular Champagne, thanks to the punch packed by the still red wine. Winemakers generally blend 15 percent of still red wine into the final sparkling rosé wine production.”
2. "Another way that rosé Champagne is produced is via the saignée method, a winemaking process commonly used around the world to create still rosés. The Saignée (“San-yay”) method is when during the first few hours of making a red wine, some of the juice is bled off and put into a new vat to make rosé.
3. Allowing the must to undergo minimal skin contact, generally for only a couple of hours. This minimal maceration allows the must to develop stronger aromas and flavor profiles while deepening the color.
   How is Rosé Champagne Made? | VinePair and winefolly too.

6] Which house is the oldest Champagne house?
Ruinart (google)

7] Which winery is the oldest in Champagne?
Gosset (google)

8] What is a “Paris Pint”?
When you pick up a French prostitute who is also a midget.

Barry, thank for your response and my need to clarify question #2 because as you say, Merret did not make champagne, but sparkling wine. I`m editing in the correct statement early on here.
Love your answer to the last question.

Ian, you are the champ to jump in and go for it.

Nothing to add, except… I love these two threads

Thanks to Blake and all for the education and entertainment.

Cheers,

Warren

BUD! Good answers and all…but kinda cheating to Google everything, isn’t it??

Thanks… wait, it is? But all the millenials do it.

Warren, Ive gotten so much good feedback from my personal email list of about 100 folks, that I intend to keep this going and not just for champagne. Its a great review for me of the books I`ve read and an opportunity to get a quick learn for others on some of the more salient points to know.

I`ll post answers this coming weekend and show that in the subject title so those who have already gone though the quiz can re-check the thread.

Is No. 1 Selosse or Krug?

My understanding was that Dom Pérignon made still wines. The notion that he invented sparkling wine is sometimes bandied around (I once heard it from one of DP’s UK brand reps), but it doesn’t even deserve to be called a legend - it’s just a mistake.

I know you’re going from David White’s book, and he and I have argued about this, but I think there’s technically a fourth* way to make a rose Champagne: by co-fermenting Pinot Noir and Chardonnay together (see, e.g., Geoffroy’s Blanc de Rose).

*I would argue that the three you are thinking of are actually two methods: blending still red wine into white or skin contact (the only difference between Barry’s #2 and #3 is whether you remove the skins from the wine or “bleed” the wine off of the skins, but they’re basically the same thing).

Anselme Selosse

Thanks Scott. I appreciate you adding this into the learning experience. BTW, I do like the Blanc de Rose from Geoffroy and its distinct brilliant color.

Blake,

Good job again. My attempt:

1] Which wine grower has had the largest impact in Champagne since Dom Perignon? Tip: he used wild yeasts for primary fermentation, refused to use sugar prior to fermentation, tried to avoid using sulphur and other additives that might compromise the unique character of the grapes and employed a solera system for the main cuvee among other quality control choices.

• Anselme Selosse

2] Who invented sparkling wine?

• Christopher Merret is credited with authoring the first known document that purposely describes making sparkling wine. He wasn’t the first to make it, but he is the first known to purposely try to make it and document a recipe for how.

3] Name the 4 regions of Champagne.

• The four classic regions are the Marne Valley, Montagne de Reims, Cote des Blancs, and Aube (The Cote des Bar is part of the Aube and has only recently become trendy to say); there are other regions you can break out, but these are the main, classical four.

4] What style and varietal is each region primarily known for?

• Marne Valley is known for Pinot Meunier, Montagne de Reims for Pinot Noir, Cote des Blancs for Chardonnay, and the Aube for Pinot Noir; at least this is the classical reference. I don’t agree with it, but it is the stereotype.

5] Name the 3 ways rose champagne is made.

• There are lots of ways people claim to make Rose, but I only believe in two - either you blend a red and white wine or you have some type of skin contact. Some will claim they add red wine to white or white wine to red or that they macerate the red and then add white. Some will co-ferment white and red grapes or pump the wine through the skins or pump the skins through the wine. You can also soak the wine on the skins or do carbonic maceration or many more variations. At the end of the day, to me, you either blend a white and red wine or you make a wine solely through some type of skin contact/interaction be it all red grapes or a mix of red and white grapes. But, that is just my opinion. I do agree that the different methods all can result in different wines, but I don’t think you can consistently blindly pick any particular method out in a tasting.

6] Which house is the oldest Champagne house?

• Runiart

7] Which winery is the oldest in Champagne?

• Gosset

8] What is a "Paris Pint?

• I have no idea

***edited to clean up poor grammar in the Rose question.

Blake, no matter what you were thinking and no matter what the correct traditional answer has been, for all purposes going forward, this is the correct answer.

Brad, again, thanks for your input. My answers which came from David White`s book are very close to what you say with the exception of the rose discussion which I understand is debatable. I love that I could get a question in that is a stumper. The Paris Pint answer is a good one and relative to tradition- in a forthcoming post.

1] Which wine grower has had the largest impact in Champagne since Dom Perignon? Tips: he used wild yeasts for primary fermentation, refused to use sugar prior to fermentation, tried to avoid using sulphur and other additives that might compromise the unique character of the grapes and employed a solera system for the main cuvee among other quality control choices.
Anselme Selosse

2] Who invented sparkling wine?
The main point of the question is to state that Dom Perignon was not the first to discover champagne even though many have created him for such.
In 496 BC, wines from the Champagne region were used for celebrations of victory. Wine sparkling in the cup was described in the Bible.
Monks in the French Pyrenees intentionally producer sparkling wine in 1531. In 1691, an English scientist, Christopher Merret added sugar to wine to get a secondary fermentation. Dom Perignon accidentally discovered the bubbles, “stars”, in 1697 and wanted to get rid of them. A 1713 inventory of his Abbey`s wines were devoid of any.

3] Name the 4 regions of Champagne.
Montgne de Reims, Vallée de la Marne, Cote des Blancs, Aube.

4] What style and varietal is each region primarily known for?
Montgne de Reims- rich, powerful blended champagnes
Vallée de la Marne- fruity, easy drinking Pinot Meunier
Cote des Blancs- elegant, zippy Chardonnay
Aube- soft, easy drinking Pinot Noir

5] Name the 3 ways rose champagne is made.
1] rose dassemblage- a small amount of red wine is added to give the white wine its color. 2] rose de saignee- juice from dark skinned grapes is bled off within a few hours to days. 3] A hybrid of the first 2, rose dsaignee is blended into a white wine.

6] Which house is the oldest Champagne house?
Ruinart 1729

7] Which winery is the oldest in Champagne?
Gosset 1584

8] What is a "Paris Pint?
In 1743, King Louis XV issued a decree which impacted the trading of champagne in that every bottle had to contain one Paris Pint = 750 milliliters and be tied down with a 3 threaded string, twisted and be knotted in the form of a cross over the cork.

Cheers,
Blake

Mr. Surly will chime in here. I am not an expert on Champagne, only an expert on being irritating:

1. Many choices here, Selosse (please note spelling) is not one of them. His ‘impact’ has now grown to where you could generously say it affects 2% of the production. Wine Snob Alert!!!
   I could name Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin, or Louis Roederer for their breathtaking success in marketing and making Champagne a long-lived brand.
   But I would give the crown collectively to the growers of the Marne whose protests in 1911 were so carefully calibrated that not a single life was lost as the houses of Moet, Mumm and Heidsieck were burned to the ground and every bottle in their cellar destroyed, with the successful goal of limiting the production of Champagne to the Marne, making Champagne justifiably the most protected brand ever.
   [The Aube, with comparable soils, also justifiably got back into it a few years later.]

2. Who invented Champagne? OK, who invented Antarctica? They are both places. Nobody invented them. Who invented sparking wine? In terms of intentional production of bubbly wine, probably some folks in Limoux about 500 years ago.

3. Montagne de Reims is best known for Pinot Noir, not necessarily for blended wines. But the west slope is home to superb terroir for Pinot Meunier… bigger yields in the Vallee de la Marne, but nowhere near the same quality. You don’t need to study Champagne to know that mountain wines are generally considered of higher quality than valley wines (I’m ready for the assault from Napa, Loire, Rhine and Mosel lovers… also please note that many of these ‘valley’ wines are grown in really steep hillsides).
   In my limited experience, the Aube tends to have more taut, zingy Champagnes than soft, easy-drinking ones. They are mostly Pinot Noir, there is virtually no Pinot Meunier, but I’m guessing that by now at least 10%, maybe as much as 20% of the vineyard is Chardonnay.

4. A Paris Pint is a hell of a lot more than a pint.

Beset regards,


Dan Kravitz