Over the past year, I have been paying more attention to Champagne; I am drinking it more frequently and experiencing a wider range (mostly NV). I just purchased an NV Rosé Champagne online which I have very modest expectations for. It has a date of disgorgement on the back label of October 2013, which I did not know prior to purchase. I do not know if this relatively old disgorgement date has good, bad, or unknown implications with respect to the drinking condition of the Champagne. Got me wondering what I should have been thinking about if I knew the disgorgement date prior to purchase.
Does not knowing the date of disgorgement influence your decision to purchase an NV champagne? If you know the date of disgorgement prior to purchase, what do you consider prior to going ahead with the purchase?
it depends. Like Marcus said, if you’re looking at NV then it’s more a curiosity of what vintage the wine is. If it’s for a vintage champagne, pre/post disgorgement aging is different. Recently disgorged tend to taste fresher but still have complexity
Jim, good topic. In my view, knowing the DD helps me to do a couple things. First, it facilitates and apples to apples comparison, meaning I can compare a bottle’s TN from someone else to my own experience. Or, it can help me understand divergence of experience from someone else if the ‘assembly or parts’ of the wine are not the same as mine. A number of NV bottling are either made from more than one vintage, or contain reserve wines or solera components, which create the NV designation so NV is a bit of a challenge. Also, you may drink a bottle of NV from a producer, and I think I am drinking the same wine, but your bottling may have a blend of 2011 and 2012 in it, whereas mine may be for example 2013/2014/2015, etc.
I wish in CT more people would take the time to key the DD into their TN. I realize it takes an extra step but it fosters a dialogue and comparison amongst us all. Not everyone wants to see or know the DD info but I do think it aids in our hobby and discussion so I’ll keep keying it into all my CT TNs.
As long as the wine is of an expected quality I think there is little to no risk. For instance, in 2010 I bought some N.V. Billecart Salmon Rosé Champagne that was about 10 years old and had been stored well during the time since purchase. They were a brilliant and unique experience that were really special. So this is the tricky part, because not all Champagnes improve with age. Some don’t like the traits that come with aged Champagne. The disgorgement can tell you some things like the vintage the base of the NV is mostly comprised of, Egly-Ouriet posts the disgorgement date and the months of age prior to disgorgement…so that can be VERY helpful. Sorry I got distracted, back to your two questions:
Does not knowing the date of disgorgement influence your decision to purchase an NV champagne?
Not really, if I’m buying a N.V. Champagne at this stage I generally already have an idea of the house style. If it was a producer I’ve never had a wine from before, I’d be curious about the disgorgement…but it would not influence my decision to buy or not to buy.
If you know the date of disgorgement prior to purchase, what do you consider prior to going ahead with the purchase?
If it’s a producer I buy wines from frequently I would be most curious to buy the disgorgement I have not had yet…or if I’m re-buying I’d look for the same disgorgement I’ve already had and loved. It will also come down to what you and Jacqueline prefer. If you both tend to enjoy the same style…lucky you. If one of you prefers the more oxidative style and the other a younger-fresher style; it’s time to start buying half-bottles.
Vilmart and Egly are 2 grower Champagnes that are transparent in the vintages used in their disgorgements. Also I find I enjoy most NV Champagnes with some bottle age on them, so having a date on the bottles helps me keep track of where I am at with drinkability.
Here are some of my notes on past bottles of N.V. Egly-Ouiret “Les Vignes de Vrigny”. If you look down through you can see where I’ve posted the disgorgement dates and information that was on the back of the label. I hope this is helpful…
Kirk
NV Egly-Ouriet Champagne Premier Cru Brut “Les Vignes de Vrigny”- France, Champagne, Champagne Premier Cru (12/25/2016)
July 2013 Disgorgement (36 months):
Color: A deep golden yellow
Smell: Slightly smoky with prominent notes of brioche along with a creamy lemon creme and green apples.
Taste: Layers of pear, quince, lemon, and chalk open up and build on themselves as the wine continues to unwind.
Overall: Outstanding!! If you have a bottle of this disgorgement…do yourself a favor and crack one. Med+ acidity, med+ fruit, and a long finish.
NV Egly-Ouriet Champagne Premier Cru Brut “Les Vignes de Vrigny”- France, Champagne, Champagne Premier Cru (8/31/2014)
Another amazing bottle…soaring scents on the nose, a dept on the palate that so few other Champagnes can reach in this price point. This is a wine that’s worthy of a case buy year in-year out. Drink or hold. Juillet 2012 Disgorgement (36 months).
NV Egly-Ouriet Champagne Premier Cru Brut “Les Vignes de Vrigny”- France, Champagne, Champagne Premier Cru (3/29/2011)
DISGORGED: September 2008 (36 months)
Color:Golden yellow with fast medium sized bubbles
Smell: baguette, strawberries, creme, and citrus zest
Taste: red fruit, mushrooms, tangerine, and hints of oak
Overall: Complex and just a brilliant wine…I love this wine and know that I tend to be a bit higher on it than most. However, for the money there are few Champagnes out there that offer the complexity, depth, and intrigue that this offers. (92 pts.)
Smell: Scents of cherries, tangerine, and fresh bread
Taste: Kiwi, Asian pear, quince, tangerine, and green apple
Overall: An incredibly complex and mind-bending Champagne. With a fine and fast bead this strikes me as a wine that will only continue to get better with time, and could improve significantly with time in the cellar. Highly enjoyable now…but this could be outstanding with another few years in the cellar. (91 pts.)
Not Champagne, but both age statement and no age statement whisky/whiskey bottles often state the bottling time and date. It is useful information, as some batches are better than others.
For NV wines, the date of disgorgement is much more useful for the knowledgeable consumers if you also know the date of triage (i.e. bottling). From that, you can infer the base vintage, as well as how long the wine spent on the lees in bottle. The disgorgement date on its own only gives you some sense of how tightly-wound the wine is likely to be (if you know how the particular bottling tends to behave), as well as giving you a means to match published reviews with wines.
That said, there are a lot of wines in the world where there are different bottlings. Among the regions I review, that is quite common in Chablis and Beaujolais. In 2018 in Chablis, there was so much wine that some cuvées were bottled in three or more runs: the first in February after the vintage! Beyond the question of different bottling dates, sometimes a cuvée will be filtered for some markets and not for others. Some importers might also select a different blend from the components available for a particular cuvée. And so on. And this information is never given on the label. So the fixation on disgorgement dates for Champagne in some quarters has sometimes struck me as just a touch disingenuous—or perhaps just naive—as the same standards are not applied to other regions.
I’ve wondered this as it relates to some 1996 Duval-Leroy ‘Femme’ I picked up. I’ve seen disgorgement dates listed online ranging from 2004-2017. I’ve also noticed different labels on various bottles. Similar to tastings of Dom P2 or P3 versus the original bottling I think it would be interesting to compare the earliest ones with the most recent ones, but I don’t know if they would be all that different.
I have a friend in the trade who has strongly recommended particularly disgorgement dates of wines she sells based on the vintages or aging. But without inside info like that or full disclosure by the producer of the vintage blend for a particular disgorgement (some producers and importers are good on that), it’s a bit hard to figure out the significance of the date on its own.
Worth noting that for many of the Terry Theise portfolio NV Champagnes he lets you know in his catalog which disgorgement he tasted, and what the base vintage was for that wine.
Exactly! With the date of triage / bottling you can figure everything out; but with just the disgorgment date, you need insider knowledge, whether from a critic or someone in the trade.
While I sometimes use them to try to figure out the base years, more often I use them to make sure an NV has not been sitting on a retail shelf for too long (at least when buying in person).
David, so if you saw the bottle that I bought on a retail store shelf, the date of disgorgement might give you some reservation about purchasing it because of possibly less than ideal storage conditions?
