Article: The era of grower Champagnes is over

WINE TALK
81

It’s more specifically the high fructose corn syrup of the Champagne world - like HFCS it is fructose/glucose as opposed to the traditional sucrose…

82

I don’t drink a whole bottle every day.

-Al

83

For what it’s worth, I don’t find Bonville very compelling, though their 2008 has turned into a very nice wine and sold way below the price of other vintage wines. In a K&L direct import my favorite is Michel Arnould Grande Cuvee. That and Chartogne Taillet Cuvee Ste. Anne are my favorites under $50.

84

I think that this post and you’re previous post are both totally fair. I love the Longitude for lots of reasons, but the acidity is in my wheelhouse. Oak regimen and blending reserve wines back to 2004 are the signs of a house that picks on acids rather than ripeness, and builds up to (perfect for me) balance.

While I like Egly-Ourier, the wines are bigger to me, and the Longitude is light beside them. And while I can’t speak to the E-O dosage, the wines don’t strike me as sweeter so much as seeing a bit more hang time before picking. And fortunately I can enjoy both, so hypothetical desert island choices don’t apply.

It seems to me that you just have different, and not lesser in any way, preferences. It would make sense that you would prefer the Tattainger La Francaise more.
[cheers.gif]

85

Marshall and I are prepared to provide help with finishing the whole bottle.

What time is good for us to arrive essentially every day?..

86

That’s not the case! Pierre Larmandier is a late picker, one of the latest in Vertus. They started moving towards vinification in wood in the 1990s, not so much for texture but because they found that, after going organic, their wines were getting too reductive in stainless steel. They use lots of foudres, however, whereas Egly uses more 228-liter barrels; and of course Egly is working with fruit from Ambonnay and a preponderance of Pinot Noir, which is a different beast from CdB Chardonnay.

I’m tempted to send samples to a lab when I get back to Beaune, but I feel confident that the Larmandier would actually be lower acid (certainly less malic) than the Taittinger, and higher in both alcohol and dry extract.

But this discussion is certainly a reminder how complex tasting Champagne is compared to still table wines… among the regions I cover, the only one that requires more mental effort is Madeira (and that’s more because of the entirely different aromatic register and the palate-fatiguing high alcohol and RS rather than an abundance of technical variables).

1 Like
87

Shortly before cooking dinner, while skimming various news sites. It’s part of the transition between work and personal time, although work sometimes returns in the evening. I think it’s important to cultivate good habits.

-Al

88

The Taittinger NV Brut vs. Larmandier-Bernier Longitude argument is an interesting one. I prefer the Longitude, but the Taittinger NV Brut is a solid wine as well. The two are made completely differently in many regards, but there are some similarities. First off, the Tattinger is majority Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier with grapes sourced from all over Champagne so it is going to be very, very different from the Longitude which is all Chardonnay from top Cote des Blancs villages. If you like some Pinot in your wine, you might even prefer the Taittinger NV Brut over Comtes. Taittinger NV Brut is all steel, Longitude is mostly Stockinger oak barrels/vessels of various sizes/ages. The Longtiude uses more reserve wine and it is a perpetual blend going back to 2004; Taittinger is normally in the 20-25% reserve range and it is a more traditional blend of reserves kept separately and most of it is from the two years prior to the base vintage. Both usually go through malolactic. Both see around the same amount of time on the lees though I have had some Longitude that has seen close to five years of aging pre-disgorgement. Dosage-wise, the Taittinger is going to be up around 9 g/L and Larmandier-Bernier at about 3 g/L.

In terms of picking, Taittinger buys in quite a bit of its grapes for the NV, so I would expect, the wines would come in with higher acid content and less potential alcohol, but chapitilisation can get the potential alcohol up to 10.5 - 11 percent which is probably not be that far off from where the Longitude comes in. With both doing malolactic, the acidity levels are probably more similar than what you experience in tasting the wine. Longitude uses more and older reserves, wood fermentation and aging. It also ferments with native yeasts vs. Taittinger’s more commercial selection. All of these matter, but at the end of the day, a pure Chardonnay from top villages with a low dosage is much, much different from a Pinot heavy blend sourced from all over Champagne with a much higher dosage.

The end result is going to be two very, very different wines. Each will have its fans. Be happy that your favorite Champagne is not everyone elses. If it was, you probably would have trouble getting it and pricing would be ridiculous.

My wife actually prefers NV Veuve Clicquot to Krug Grande Cuvee. She enjoys both, but always finds Krug a bit too rich or as she says ‘dark tasting’ for her palate. She also tends to prefer her Champagne with less than five years of post-disgorgement age on it. Nothing wrong with this and she can pretty much instantly tell what I am going to love, dislike, and just kind of find average. Her palate is great and she can calibrate it with mine, but it is different and nothing wrong with that.

1 Like
89

I still remember the first time I tasted Bereche’s Reflet d’Antan. I was floored as there ws nothing else like it out there. I viewed it as kind of a punk rocker on steriods version of Krug Grande Cuvee or, as I also have described it, ‘taking the best of Jacques Selosse’s Substance, Henri Billiot’s Cuvee Julie, Henri Giraud’s Fut de Chene, and Vilmart’s Coeur de Cuvee with the stamp of the Bereche house style’. Such a crazy, fun wine. This would have been in the 2008-2009 timeframe. Dosage on the wine back then was normally 8-10 g/L and it was rich, fruity, layered, biscuity, buttery, gingerbread filled, nutty, and with the perfect balance of fresh structure and creamy, warming maturity without coming across as oxidized. Some found it outlandish and overdone, but still well made, interesting, and not a bad wine.

Things started to change in 2010-2011 as Bereche lowered the dosage to 7 and then 6 then 4 and then even did some small batches at 2 and 0 g/L. Demand also rose quite a bit in this timeframe and even as they increased production by 50%, the wines did not see as much pre-disgorgement age as they once did (the drop was anywhere from 12-36 months less age prior to disgorgement). The wine became much too dry to me and not as complex. Bereche then started pushing the dosage back up to 6 g/L and slowed down the release of supply for a couple years to push the pre-disgorgement aging out at least another 12 months and get back to around four years of aging before disgorgement. This helped, but then the perpetual blend started to go volatile and slightly too mature. Not enough to necessarily offend most people (heck, some liked it), but enough to make it a worry. It is being cleaned up now, is better, and the end result is still a top wine but I doubt it will ever be what it once was and I wish I would have saved more bottles from its golden era. That is the problem with a perpetual blend. You really, really have to keep an eye on it to make sure it is consistent from year to year and try to keep separate batches/vessels. One bad move or wine reaction and you can lose it all or spend many years trying to correct it. Billiot’s Laetitia cuvee is another example of this. Laetitia Billiot is still trying to get the wine back up to what it once was before her father pushed things a bit too far and let the volatility get out of control.

1 Like
90

Thanks, this is a lot of good information. I tried the LBL against the Fhilippe Fourrier blanc de noirs and preferred the blanc de noirs. Maybe I like Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier based champagne more. That is until you bring up Comtes. It is probably my favorite of all time. I cannot afford to drink it all the time, but every time I have it, I feel really happy. I know someone said earlier it was just an aperitif kind of wine, but for me, it ticks every box.

There are some NV champagnes that I like more than La Francaise, but they are a lot more expensive. Like Billecart, Charles Heidsieck, or Ruinart. Then there are vintage champagnes that can be better than CdC, but they are also a lot more expensive. I’m always coming from the best QPR for me angle.

In general, most grower champagnes will not perform as well as these house champagne. This statement should not be that controversial. People throw out 3 or 4 of their favorite grower champagnes as counter example, but that is not the point.

91

Unless you’re referring to (1) for your tastes only or (2) the hundreds/thousands of growers out there beverages a few houses (as opposed to the more well known and widely drank growers), this statement is absurd.

92

I represent two growers. Having skimmed the thread, I am pretty sure that neither has been mentioned, despite a lot of commentary on the ‘elite’ growers who will not be among the casualties.

William Kelley wrote “artisanal revolution in viticulture and winemaking that began in the 1970s with Selosse”. One of the two growers I represent has been Estate Bottling since the 1950s. In fact, last year’s ‘old and rare’ offering from this grower went back to 1973; not sure if he’ll still offer '73 this year but am quite certain that at least '75 will be on the list.

I had an order for hundreds of cases of NV Brut for my other grower. They respectfully turned it down. They could have come up with the quantity without sacrificing quality, but preferred not to sell their wine through an internet retailer, even one with an impeccable reputation. This indicates to me that they are in it for the long haul and are sanguine about the future of the Champagne business.

Of course Champagne sales are in the tank. These are not celebratory times. If in 12 months we have vaccines, and plague stories are below the fold, sales will rebound strongly. If COVID is front page news in 2022, our world will not be recognizable and Champagne sales will be irrelevant.

Dan Kravitz

93

Dan,

Good point. Growers have been around for a long while and there have been various big points of inflection. Selosse gets a lot of credit for the ‘grower revolution’, but history has a way of rewriting itself. He was of course very important, but I see the first big, modern grower movement to be the establishment of the Special Club or Club Tresors de Champagne. Anselme’s father Jacques was a part of that early group and Anselme continued on for a while in the first half of the 80s until they kind of told him to make his wines more traditionally or leave; of course, he left. Selosse always had good vineyards and the wines were always considered very good even before Ansleme. Anselme certainly changed them and made the wines what they are today, but his father wasn’t too bad a vinegrower and winemaker either. Also, the first grower to really get ‘big’ attention was Jacques Diebolt. He was the star for a few years before Selosse took the pole position over and Diebolt has kind of faded recently as Jacques Diebolt has aged. Anselme is a bit younger than Jacques, has more energy IMO, made more distinctive cuvees, tried new things more often, and was always looking to help others learn; he was always taking in young winemakers for a stay/internship. This helped spread the word of what he did and has established him as the revolution starter. He has had the biggest impact, but he didn’t start things and he will happily tell you this as well.

Also, Jean Laurent is a lost super star. His family really should get the credit for putting Celles-sur-Ource on the map. A producer who does great things, yet gets far too little respect and attention.

1 Like
94

Dan, if you read the post I’m quite clear about the fact that there have been grower-bottlers in Champagne since the 19th-century, and that they are very numerous. My point was that when we talk about things such as a “grower revolution”—which Tyson’s article that spawned this thread seemed to advert to—we are really talking about a more recent phenomenon, and one which really began with Selosse in the 1970s, even if other producers who have been important don’t necessarily get the credit they deserve. If the grower you represent was abandoning herbicides and cultivating his soils, barrel fermenting, and eschewing chaptalization in the 1970s, then perhaps he is an unsung hero who should be talked about in the same terms as Selosse? But if that is not the case, then he is another one of the many growers that have been around in Champagne for a long time, and whose abundance I very clearly drew attention to in the comment that you quote.

95

It’s certainly a grower movement, and one of some importance, but it was (to some extent, is) clearly different in kind and in aspiration from a grower movement of the kind represented by the likes of Selosse, Egly-Ouriet and Larmandier-Barnier, emphasizing a different approach to viticulture and winemaking.

96

William,

To me, this is kind of like talking about whether Run-D.M.C. is new school, old school, older school, or oldest school. I still see Run-D.M.C. as part of the first big shift in hip-hop/rap and the first, modern hip-hop/rap act to be groundbreaking (no disrepect to The Treacherous Three, Afrika Bambaataa, Kurtis Blow, The Sugarhill Gang, etc… who I consider the true old school). Run-D.M.C. is the first or historic new school to me. Sure there have been other waves since then, but they really are the ones who knocked that door down.

At one point, the Club de Tresors was the place to be. You wanted to be a part of it if you were a top grower. That is where you went to showcase your hard work. That was how you got exposure and were able to show that you had a prestige wine like DP, Comtes, Cristal, Belle Epoque, Grande Siecle, etc… This was the first real grower mark in the modern era. I can understand others saying that the Club de Tresors is old school and not modern, but a lot of the big names of today were there in the early days of the Club and pushed their agenda forward while in it - Peters, Selosse, Mandois, Philippe Gonet, Larmandier-Bernier, Margaine, Gimonnet, Guy Charlemagne, Goutorbe, Jose Michel, Paul Bara, etc… Obviously things have changed over time and so has the approach many of these producers have taken, but from the mid-70s through the 80s, there wasn’t any place else most growers wanted to be.

Anselme Selosse, Francis Egly, and Pierre Larmandier are all part of the great growers of today. Selosse and Larmandier-Bernier were also both part of the Club Tresors de Champagne. Their greatness was first showcased on a wide scale there and they left when they felt their greatness was being contained by the rigid confines of the club. That was a mistake that the Club really didn’t remedy until the last few years. The ‘new school’ Club became ‘old school’ and didn’t want to change or support different opinions. A lot of the good guys left.

The approaches of Selosse, Egly, and Larmanider-Bernier are all different, but similar in dedication, passion, and following their heart. Same goes for lots of other producers. I have no problem with love for these folks especially Anselme, but the Club is still my ‘new school’ and the first ‘newer school’ was Jacques Diebolt at the start of the 90s. He was really the first producer to get mad love for what he was doing in the vineyards and winery.

We are probably disagreeing over minor details and you can make a case we both have valid points. I just don’t see the modern grower movement having its roots at the same place you do; I think it goes back a bit farther in time. Just depends on your perspective.

1 Like
97

William, Brad,

please keep discussing; I feel like an oenology student who just signed up for a class called “The Grower Champagne Movement: an historical deconstruction” and is for the first time understanding what we are talking about. Heck, this is a history of wine trends account as I have very very rarely seen before. Hats off. Now I’ll grab pen and paper and let you guys go on undisturbed… [bye.gif]

98

At this point I bursted out laughing.

99

I don’t know much about Run-D.M.C Brad, but I do like those RUN DRC T-shirts that have a silhouette of Aubert de Villaine’s head on them

100

In fact, I don’t think we are really disagreeing very much at all. If you refer back to post #11, my argument was that Tyson’s article was likely to mislead the average reader, in so far as what “grower Champagne” means to the vast majority of consumers is not RMs as a whole, but rather a small, quality-minded subset of RMs. Saying “the era of grower Champagne is over” is going to make folks worry that e.g. Chartogne-Taillet is about to go out of business; whereas nothing could be further from the truth.

Beyond that, whether the small, quality-minded subset of RMs that most consumers think of when we talk about “grower Champagne” is the Special Club; or rather, what I have taken to calling Champagne’s “artisanal revolution”, beginning with Selosse—well, that is simply a question of perception, and it will depend on the generational and experiential context of the particular consumer. And I accept your well-made point that when some consumers hear “grower Champagne”, they are likely thinking “Gimonnet” and “Gaston Chiquet” rather than “Selosse” or “Egly-Ouriet”. My perception of this is here limited by my own context: growing up in the UK, that first wave of mainly Club member growers made less of an impression in the market than I think it did on especially the East Coast of the USA; and today, living and working in Burgundy, it is naturally the more Burgundy-inspired growers that are the most talked about.

Even if we seem to differ in our reading of the term “grower revolution”, in fact, I don’t think there are any fundamental disagreements. You’ll note that in post #11, I propose substituting the term “artisanal revolution” for the commonly-used phrase “grower revolution” for precisely the reason that there has been a grower movement in Champagne long before. However—and this is where we may disagree—I do see what I call this “artisanal revolution” beginning with Selosse in the 1970s as something distinctly different from what the Club had done.

The Club was producing high quality wines and “prestige cuvées”, the aspiration being to show that growers could do what the Grandes Marques could do, and just as well. What began with Selosse was inspired not my the Grandes Marques but rather by Burgundy (and, in Selosse’s case, the Iberian peninsula), and the wines emerging from this “movement” have not sought to emulate the prestige cuvées of the Grandes Marques but rather do something entirely different. That was the case in the vineyards, with the rejection of herbicides, the pursuit of lower yields, planting massale selections, picking much riper grapes, eschewing chaptalization and acidulation; and it was the case in the cellar, with a rejection of enzymes, centrifuges, cultured yeasts, and an embrace of barrel fermentation, longer sur lie élevage of vins clairs, a longer prise de mousse, and lower dosage at disgorgement. To me, these departures from what I would call “conventional” rather than “traditional” practice are the true revolution, not producing a préstige cuvée. Imagine, moreover, the parlous state Champagne would be in today if it hadn’t happened!

Of course, for the first decade-plus, the producers that today I would identify as the most important didn’t know that much about what the others were doing: Francis Egly did what he did in the 1980s entirely independently of Selosse, and his influences in Burgundy were different (both direct, and mediated by Michel Bettane); he did not take any interest in Spain. Pierre Larmandier’s route towards artisanal winemaking began via organic viticulture, with changes in the cellar only coming later; when he travelled to Spain with Anselme Selosse, and watched Selosse tasting the “flor” in Jerez, he didn’t feel the same pull towards biological aging. It also took time for all these producers and others to arrive at their mature styles. So it is only retrospectively that what Selosse started doing in the 1970s seems like the beginning of a movement; but it is of the nature of “origins”, as historians know, that they are identifiable only in retrospect.

From my perspective, if one looks at the most interesting producers to emerge in Champagne since the millennium, they are much more shaped by what I am calling this artisanal movement than by anything emanating from the Club. Some such as Adrien Dhondt and Alexandre Chartogne are quite directly and obviously influenced by Selosse; others, such as Olivier Collin, have spent time in Avize, been touched by Anselme’s influence, and then gone on to forge very distinctive styles of their own (I would say that Olivier is in a sense more inspired by Francis Egly than Selosse these days). And others, such as Cédric Bouchard, without being anyone’s disciple or part of any group, demonstrate an independence of spirit—in terms of viticulture, bottling with lower atmospheric pressure, and doing this all in what was historically a backwater and even with, for some cuvées, a less prestigious cépage—that is entirely of a piece with what Selosse and Egly were doing in the 1980s, which is to say challenging conventional wisdom about what Champagne can be. Cédric Bouchard, it’s clear, would never make the kind of wines he makes, even today, within the parameters of the Club. Now of course, I think we probably differ on a few counts about which are the most interesting producers in Champagne today; but that is perfectly natural, and as I say, this last paragraph is very much just my perspective.

1 Like