Is Brut champagne dying out?

Here’s an interesting article written by Gary Westby of K&L. He demystifies a few of mis conceptions about sugar in the dosage and more and about the trend toward no or less dosage:

Thanks.It was a worthwhile read.

Fun read. I see an analogy here between Champagne’s sec/extra dry/brut/extra brut and Germany’s kabinett/spatlese/auslese designations. The labels have meaning but don’t necessarily translate into what you will taste. A knowledge of producer, vintage, and sometimes individual wines is necessary.

Conclusion, as always drink what you like and ignore the hype.

Let me quote this entertaining bit from Terry Theise’s 2019 catalog [stirthepothal.gif]

(the catalog is available here: https://www.skurnik.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/SKURNIK_THEISE_Champagne_2019_CATALOG-WEB.pdf)

Having established and sold this portfolio for 22 years now, the only thing I quest for in Champagne is—beauty. Just like I seek in all wines. I appreciate experimentation—this entire portfolio is built on the idea of breaking free of old assumptions—but I prefer the experimenters to be searching for new ways for Champagne to be delicious and beautiful, whereas, distressingly, too often they seem only to be groping for novelty. At times they pursue bad ideas and false gods.

Why am I telling you this?

An entire crop of passionate young growers, encouraged by the pioneers who paved the way for them, are entering what is now a comfortable world. I don’t mean they’ll get rich, or want to get rich, but I mean they don’t need to doubt that a demand exists for grower Champagne. And they can look at the landscape and see how they might contribute.

This is a mixed blessing.

I am thrilled at how vibrant the grower-Champagne culture is, thrilled at the excitement in the air around it, thrilled at the breaking down of the walls that prevented growers from sharing information with one another, thrilled that the grower-culture is seen as a culture, and well-pleased to be active, doing my part in such happy times.

And yet. These young growers are often…. very young people. I used to be one myself. Wanna know how I was in my twenties? I was often an asshole in my twenties, and I was way too sure that every idea I had came right from the lips of the angels, and I was serenely certain that I was entirely right in all my views and opinions. That is to say, I was a person in his twenties: Often wrong and never uncertain. In some ways it’s one’s job to be smug and cocksure and vainglorious as a 20-something. Because if you weren’t, life wouldn’t be able to kick your conceited ass in your thirties.

This new generation of Champagne growers are full of ideas and plans and concepts, and many of the ideas are good. I tasted the collection of one conspicuously interesting grower—a friend of a friend—and was really thirsty to crack into those samples because the guy looked wonderful on paper. The wines, though, were pretty meh. It was clear to me that here was talent, here was energy, here was derring-do, here was everything but - palate. Somewhere in all this conceptualizing the guy had forgotten to consider what tasted good.

Part of this can be explained by the current fad for low-or-no-dosage Champagnes. I respect (and love) the minority of these wines that work, but I lament the majority of them that don’t, and the muddled and incoherent thinking that underlies them. Today’s young grower emerges into a Moment where the catechism is to reduce dosage at all costs, to zero if possible. He’s also laboring under the delusion that Champagne should be as intense as other wines. Small wonder that he makes awkward, painful, difficult, unpleasant wines. And sadly, small wonder that they are greeted with approval by people of corrupted (or simply unformed) palates.

There is wheat among all this chaff—I think of Chartogne and Moussé and feel a massive of relief that here are two sensible men making superbly delicious Champagne in line with the Zeitgeist but not enslaved by it. Another excellent young grower will join their ranks in my offering. You can tell me any story you wish, if your wine tastes good. I love a good story—we call them “selling points” in our filthy mercantile personae—but no story, no matter how good, means anything if the wine’s lousy. And so I ask of you, dear reader, to hold the “story” in abeyance even if it’s compelling, and taste the Champagne dispassionately. Taste it with your wits and your actual honest palate. Like it if you truly like it, and not because the story encouraged you or made you hope you’d like it.

One grower whose wines I tasted is an avowed explorer of his terroir, which he understands in geological terms but doesn’t seem to know how to register sensually. The Champagnes were so Stalinist, so dour and ominous, that terroir was obliterated, swept under a prevailing ferocity and bitterness. Does he really suppose that terroir is subsumed by dosage? It would seem so, and it contradicts a lifetime of evidence I myself have accumulated, that the right dosage makes terroir sing out. Obviously too much sugar is as bad as too little (but even then I’d argue that the over-dosaged Champagne is at least palatable, albeit mundane, whereas the under-dosed wine is shrill and unpleasant), but if you begin by assuming that dosage is public-enemy-number-one
to terroir, you’re starting with a frame of reference that’s 180º false.

My new motto is: Learn to discern!

I blame Frank Murray

It’s not dying out.

No dosage is just another fad that will either fade away (as some no dosage wines do before their time), or become part of the overall landscape, with less of the religious fervor, and more of a nod towards balance, regardless of dosage level.

I like Theises motto: "Learn to discern!" Its so appropriate in this discussion.

so true!

there are few inalienable truths in this world, but this is one.

Blamers. flirtysmile

I drank a Mousse Effusion Rose last night that was labeled at 6 g/l. This is a bit further from zero, and it worked because it was balanced. If it would have tasted like 7-Up/cherry soda, I would have dumped it but in this instance, it worked and the wine was terrific. On the fringes, I have had some Laval zero that I did not care for, yet if you look at my signature line, that Marie-Courtin Eloquence I would put up against anything I have tasted this year, including Cristal.

You dudes know me, and my palate. I have shifted big time away from higher ABV, perceived heavy/sweet wines, and I simply find that the lower register of dosage generally hits it for me. Vilmart is not lower register, yet I like it, and same with Cristal.

Brut ain’t gonna die out. But, some of us want to drink in this lower range and this is generally where my dollars go now.

+1

It’s known that the vast majority of wine drinkers (not us wine nerds that hang out here) prefer wine that’s got some sweetness to it, although not sweet wines such as sauternes or ice wine. So I wouldn’t see some mass movement to champagne that’s even dryer than brut.

That’s certainly where I come out after trying various zero-dosage Champers.

I’m disappointed in all of you. No one has posted yet that “Brut is dead in retail”. [scratch.gif]

As they say in Champagne, non-dosee is like a woman without makeup.

Brut is dead in retail

Retail is dead.

Who exactly says that please. I’d like to know to avoid buying their wine.

It’s an old colloquiallism from a different time.

Best not repeated I’d say.