Alan,
I feel your frustration. I too am wandering through the forest of New Champagne with the helpful guidance of a couple of people who are on here (hi Eric, Keith and Beau!) and hopefully will chime in, but let me see if I can help untangle a couple of things. First, don’t feel frustrated! The biggest question is - what do you want out of Champagne? If it’s Burgundy with bubbles… you can have that but it’s going to be expensive. If it’s learning about the terroir, that’s a lot easier than it used to be.
Imagine if 95% of Burgundy you had access to was just labelled “Burgundy” and was blends of various villages etc… you wouldn’t feel too bad about not being able to tell Gevrey from Morey St. Denis from Beaune much less Les St. Georges from Vaucrains from Roncieres! That’s where Champagne was maybe 30 years ago - think Krug vs Moet vs Taittinger. People spoke of house styles and not much else. But imagine you were used to drinking “Burgundy” and someone handed you a bottle of Meo Camuzet’s Clos Vougeot… it might be hard to understand, but you’d probably know the wine was trying to say something.
Then there was a phase where producers became known for their villages and people became excited to know the different ratings of the echelle system. Suddenly ou could buy Champagne so that you could tell the difference between Oger and Cramant and Les Mesnil-sur-Oger, or at least between Ambonnay and Verzenay. The former Theise book was dedicated to this project - people like Pierre Peters and Vilmart and Gimmonet. Now the conversation started to be about terroir, at least on a larger scale.
Today, it’s weird. There’s some fantastic wine coming out of the Aube - a place more akin to Chablis than big house Champagne. Cedric Bouchard, Olivier Lassaigne and Piollot come to mind. People are doing great things with Pinot Meunier, which I was always taught (back in the early 2000s) was a blending grape - the Champenois equivalent of Merlot. There are people like Georges Laval, Laherte Freres, Coussens, Mousse Fils, Lilbert, and Paul Launois who are starting to dig into cadastral maps and put out single vineyard Champagnes. Minor grapes like Petit Meslier or Arbanne are showing what they can do when they’re treated well. It’s a brave new world out there, and while prices on some producers are accelerating quickly (hi Selosse, Ulysses Collin, Cedric Bouchard), you can still find really cool stuff for under $100, and generally around $50.
The other thing you might find appealing is that Champagne is becoming more gastronomic - dosage levels are down significantly, and while thery’re not a great indicator of how serious a producer is, good growers pick ripe fruit and can use less dosage in their wines.
I have the following things coming when the weather cools down:
Laherte Freres “Autrefois” “Crayeres” and “Beaudieres” (which is a rose), rose of Pinot Meunier
Lilbert Extra Brut and Perle
Coussens Rose
Cossy Rose, VV and L’Instant Blanc de Blanc
All these are between $50 and $90 and are pretty available. I hope that people more knowledgeable than I can chime in here, but also that this helps a bit.
Thanks,
Zachary