Paging Brad Baker: is this in any way real?

from Garagiste, evidently alleging that there is a secret in Champagne that almost all is made by some secret organization: “What if I told you that most (if not all) of your favorite high-end “branded” Champagne was the vinified majesty of a single cooperative with such over-reaching power and authority, they are akin to The Great and Powerful Oz behind the curtain of commercial Chardonnay-based Champagne marketers? Insert your favorite top-end label (yes, that one as well) and the chances are, the Grand Cru (and 1er) Blanc de Blancs base of the wine was grown and vinified by Champagne de Saint Gall (AKA Union Champagne de Saint Gall), not by the branded entity itself.

The only real exception to this?

Roederer.

Roederer has slowly gobbled up their own estate parcels and they now have over 600 acres to their credit (but it’s still not enough). Just about every other non-grower/bottler that you can think of is a client of De Saint Gall.

This is a rather large “secret” of Champagne that few consumers know about. Even LVMH and their massive reach are dependent on De Saint Gall for most of their top Chardonnay material but there may come a time when De Saint Gall decides to skim the best of what they have for their own bottled use (instead of trading it to the luxury houses).”

What’s the reality?

De Saint Gall is run by The Queen, The Vatican, The Gettys, The Rothschilds, and Colonel Sanders, before he went tits up.

Really. Who else could break such a huge story about an international conspiracy but Jon Rimmerman. I hope he has 24 hour bodyguards.

yeah, I found it crazy and want to hear Brad’s reality.

Is there something a little galling about this post?

Sorry.

Dan Kravitz

Yeah, it is falling. Nobody has said anything laudatory about Keller! Sacrilege. :wink:

No idea about Alan’s question but who cares about champagne when you can drink Keller?

De Saint-Gall is the main label of the large Avize based Union Champagne Cooperative. Like most growers and cooperatives, they sell a lot of wine to the big houses. This is not news. As for their wines, they are not bad, but nothing to write home about either. While they are an upper-end cooperative, I put their wines quite a bit behind co-ops like Palmer and Mailly. I would put them at the same level as Nicolas Feuillatte across the range with the De Saint-Gall prestige wine Orpale the equivalent of Feuillatte’s Palmes d’Or. Personally, I find the wine boring, but some like them as pricing can be attractive.

A comparison to Nicolas Feuillatte… damning with faint praise.

The sad fact is that among cooperatives, Feuillatte (and Jacquart) are fairly high end. Sad, but true.

If they are selling a lot of wine to the big houses and their wine is mediocre, what are the big houses doing to this wine to improve it?

Taittinger owns more than 700 acres of Vineyards.

does the wine sold to big houses get relabeled as such and why is this permitted? Are we to believe that when Cristal and Dom run out of juice, this coop’s bubbly is offered as a substitute, unknown to the purchaser?

Of course. Sur Lattes. But no one does it anymore. Honest. :smiley:

Brad, do they generally sell wine, grapes or grape juice these days?

Why wouldn’t it be permitted? Most of the big house wines don’t claim to be anything more than “Champagne,” do they?

I would imagine these wines become part of the blending wine houses use to make their basic bottling.

I’m not Brad and do not have anywhere near his knowledge, but I have some opinions and some facts:

While most of the Champagne Cooperatives are of so-so quality (as are most of the negociants and most of the growers), there are some real stars. I don’t know Palmer (Brad, can you please offer some detail?), but Mailly can make great wine. In the underrated Aube district, the Devaux Cooperative may be the single best in Champagne, with the top wines at the highest level. Their joint venture with Chapoutier is Stenope, I don’t think is available in the U.S. I had a bottle of '08 in France a year or two ago and I think it could stand with brands such as DP and Cristal. It’s not like Chapoutier would have any trouble finding a partner in Champagne; the partner they chose says something (of course not everybody admires Chapoutier, but as a Roussillon grower I’ve been really impressed with his Domaine there).

As to Dom Perignon and Cristal (again, Brad please correct me if I’m mistaken), these are brands owned respectively by the negociant houses Moet & Chandon and Roederer. I believe that they could buy literally any wine entitled to the Appellation Champagne and sell it under those names. Ditto of course for Grande Dame, Louise, Comtes de Champagne, Winston Churchill, Grand Siecle, Fleur, ad infinitum.

As to owning vineyards, I believe that Moet & Chandon owns about 2000 acres. However as their production is the biggest, the percentage of their own grapes in their wines is probably lower than that of Taittinger and Roederer. Anecdotally, Roederer may be the leader among famous Grand Marques for using more of their own grapes as a percentage of their wines, although I would imagine that Bollinger is up there.

An article a few years ago in Drinks Magazine listed the top 10 brands by production:
Moet of course #1, way way ahead of the pack with 30M bottles.
Then Veuve, 19M
Then Nicolas Feuillatte, 10.8M
Then, the next seven from biggest to “smallest”
Mumm
Laurent Perrier
Taittinger
Pommery
Piper
Lanson
Canard Duchene (4.1M).

I represent two Champagne Estates. The “big” one produces about 12,500 cases (150,000 bottles), or about 1/2 of 1% of Moet, the smaller one is about 8000 cases (~100,000 bottles). Of course that’s just comparing their entire production to one of the Moet Hennessy brands. Please remember that LVMH also owns Veuve, the #2 brand, as well as some smaller brands like Ruinart, Mercier and Krug. So total LVMH production at least 5 million cases.

Dan Kravitz

I’ve always hated the Colonel with his wee beady eyes…

This is good info Dan although I don’t think it’s fair to call Roederer a negociant. As far as I know, everything but the NV uses grapes from Roederer-owned vineyards, and I think the last stat I heard was the NV is around 70%. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have a plan to move to 100% estate owned.