I don’t cellar and drink enough champagne, but I aim to change that. I’ve been sampling stuff $25-$65 in price to get a sense of what I want to buy in volume, and this got me thinking: in general, are vintage designated champagnes worth the up-charge? For instance, on K&L’s site vintage champagne is usually at least 45% more than the NV version.
I am just talking about the standard step from the NV brut to the Millésimé brut from the same producer, no special bottlings. And to keep things simple, I am just talking about recent champagne vintages like the 08, 09, or 10.
Of what I have tried recently, I haven’t been able to see a clear difference between the NV and Millésimé bruts, but maybe that only shows with enough bottle age. Or maybe it entirely depends on the producer, making any generalities pointless.
I usually like vintage Champagne over NV. Even the very top, I think Krug vintage is far superior to their multi-vintage, which I am less fond of than others seem to be. I also prefer Vilmart vintage over NV by a mile. Not as sure whether this is as big a difference in the $25-65 range.
Good to hear. Is it because vintage champagnes are generally fresher? Which would make sense as they could potentially be bottled sooner than a NV blend from 3 years. And/or do better grapes go into the vintage bottlings, with the remainder for the NV blends?
the more i drink krug the more i seem to enjoy the nv/mv even more than their vintage (including clos mesnil, ambonnay, collection) counterpart especially when aged.
Believe me, I weighed the considerable ‘risk’ that this would happen before posting my query. But I am a self-declared champagne neophyte and proud of it!
But clearly I should have done a better search for prior threads, unless opinions have shifted substantially in the intervening 11 months.
Taking a look at Michael’s thread from 12/16, here’s an addendum: why is vintage champagne better?
For instance, I have heard the argument that vintages are variable enough in champagne given the “marginal” climate for growing grapes that a multi-vintage blend is more likely to be a complete wine.
Of course, there are great individual vintages like 1996 that we can all agree are great, but this is an “in general” topic.
I think this is an excellent question and would love to read more views. I think of vintage wines as often coming from better vineyards - think premier cru or grand cru Burgundy vs. village level Burgundy or in California the reserve Cab vs. the regular cab. Could be wrong on occasion here, but they are picking out their best wines, which I would think would come from their best vineyards. And, you only get wine from the specific vintage, which can be good or bad. In a multi-vintage wine, you could get some 2012 in it, but also possibly some 2011.
All my comments above compare vintage vs. nonvintage by the same producer. As is true in all wine regions, producer is #1 and a NV champagne from a great producer likely is going to be better than a 2002 Champagne from a grand cru vineyard from a mediocre producer.
In many cases, the basic vintage offering of a producer is the sweet value spot in Champagne. If the NV is $40, the vintage is often only a $20 upcharge. Add in a year where things are truly above average (like 08 and 09) and you can really get a deal in term of quality to price ratio. It can often take some time for the vintage wines to mature and really show their class especially compared to an NV that will likely hit its sweet spot at a younger age.
Personally I wouldn’t listen to anyone else despite the collective/individual views here. Do this empirically within your chosen price range so you can see for yourself.
Try 08 or 09 Roederer side by side with the NV. Do same with Pol Roger. Same with grower Champagne if you can find vintage wine at a good price. Chartogne Taillet is a possibility.
I personally like the vintage champagnes on average better, and think they are worth the premium, but each person is different.
My POV is that the vintage bottling are worth the price. I’ve tasted a bunch side by side - eg. for Pol Roger, Taittinger the difference is dramatic. Krug is perhaps an unfair comparison because the MV is as much or more than the top of the line from many producers. The gap between Krug’s MV and vintage is smaller — though I’ve never aged the MV’s as much as I do the vintage wines.
Why are the vintage wines better (or at least different)? I always assumed it was made from the best grapes and best vineyards. Could be wrong.
As always, taste as much as you can and decide if you think the difference is justifiable to your palate/wallet.
2008 is a very good year and some wines will be truly great, but some are also a bit out of balance; mistakes were made. It is a higher acid year and one that needs balance in winemaking (careful and thoughtful use of oak, malolactic, dosage, etc…). The Pinot grapes are awesome in this year. This is a year to age and has subtle similarities to 1988. The best vintage since 1996.
2009 is fast becoming a favorite of mine. It has good structure and great fruit making it a wine you can drink now and age. It is much better than I ever expected and flies a bit under the radar as it wasn’t expected to be this good. The best of 2009 will not equal the best of 2008, but it is more homogeneous across the vintage. 2009 is kind of like 1995 compared to 2008/1996 in that way.
2010 is not really a vintage year. It was a year of mold and rot that required a lot of selection. Yes, some good wines were made in specific locations, but it is really an NV year and even then below average. The vintage wines are heavier and more about roundness than fruit. They are near to medium term drinkers.
I believe that some NV blends are better than others (i.e. Krug, Grand Siecle) and these age beautifully. Vintage wines I think are often “built to age” and improve, but not always so. Especially with the grower champagnes where the vintage wines can be very close to the nv, and it’s hard to tell which will age better. I agree that many producers put their better fruit/time/effort into vintage wines than the larger production non-vintage ones.
For me, I generally buy the vintage because then I have something to talk about. If I drink a bottle of NV Roederer Brut and it’s fantastic, it means almost nothing. I can’t be certain that the next bottle will be the same blend, or aged the same time, etc. And anyone reading my notes cannot really benefit from them, because chances are slim that they have the same bottling available to them. From a general style perspective, maybe I can convey some meaningful information, but otherwise nil.
Now, if I have a really great bottle of Vilmart Coeur de Cuvee 2008, and post a note, anyone can benefit from that and try and find the same wine. Chances are that they were disgorged together, the grape makeup is the same, and that they are of the same age.
So since wine is a hobby for me and not a beverage, I try to pick wines based on info from other tasters and those that I can talk about…that have a sense of place or history or a story behind them or whatever.
This whole issue is complicated into insanity with the Moet P2 baloney or bottling IDs on NV blends. It’s got people looking for microprinted information on corks or back labels to try and figure out what they are drinking. And there will be infinitely many releases of Dom Perignon 1996 so why even bother? Drink them? YES! Buy them, not so much…
I would not want to generalize too much on the subject. I think there is a more clear-cut difference between NV and vintage when you talk about grande marques than when you talk about vignerons. With the former the vintage wines are usually more interesting/compelling than the NVs while with growers already the NVs offer usually a lot of character (and to some degree vintage variation). With growers the price difference between NV and vintage is often quite small and they also tend to offer cuvées that are not vintage-dated but are in fact only from one vintage.
My purchases tend to be mostly from growers, approximately half vintage and half NV. Very often the vintage composition is stated on the back label for NVs and I tend to avoid certain base vintages (2005 for PN, 2011 in general, etc.). Same thing with vintage wines, I tend to buy certain vintages for the cellar (2008, 2012) and others for early drinking (2007, 2009). Thus I would say that the value is definitely there when it comes to vintage wines if you know your producers and vintages.
I’m curious about this, genuinely don’t understand it. I’m pretty familiar about how champagne is made, but what does this mean? Is there a bunch of base wine around from '96 to make the vintage? Or was there just a ton of it made such that it will be around for a long time? The latter is how I would understand it… Or maybe 'm just not getting any hyperbole?
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