What Greg said. I’d add, as someone who drinks Champagne 99/100 bottles now, that the beauty of the region for me is the diversity. Embrace both the learning about the various styles as the styles themselves. Any occasion, any meal, there’s a Champagne for it.
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Agree. Champagne styles are so diverse. Saying you like “Champagne” isn’t all that different from saying you like “red wine.” The diversity is wonderful and maddening, and the only way to sort through it is to drink widely – big producers and growers alike. At least the process is fun!
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I love Dom and Krug and Comte.
Cristal tastes sweeter/less acidic to me and I’m not a big fan. Has saved me a bundle.
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I agree. Of course, not everyone’s journey needs to go the same way, but I wouldn’t usually recommend starting to explore a region or variety by buying a bunch of the most expensive trophy wines in the category.
To be clear, I don’t mean that as an attack or to disparage Emil – he should go about it any way he wants and spend his money however he likes. But since he asked for opinions, I would recommend starting more from the ground up. Learn about different styles, subregions, varietal composition, dosage, aging, by working through good $40-100 type bottles.
Then with that framework and with more knowledge about both Champagne and his own palate, experiencing top vintages of top bottles will have a lot more meaning than “that one tasted really good.”
Of course, if one’s goal is just to try the top bottlings from Champagne to see which you like between Cristal, Salon, P2, Comtes etc., and you have the resources for that, it’s totally fine to do that as well.
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As much as anything else, this is meant for Emil to explore his palate; he can do that just as well with Comtes as he can with the Taittinger Brut. In addition, unlike many other regions, the prestige cuvees are fairly accessible young because they’re released so late. I wouldn’t advise someone to learn about Burgundy by drinking 2020 DRC, but in Champagne? 2013 Cristal is brilliant and it can be drunk without understanding (or trying) the rest of Roderer’s lineup.
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