Before I officially kick off this travel log, I want to first extend my sincere thanks to a few Berserkers (notably @Warren_Taranow and @Sarah_Kirschbaum) and so many other regulars in the Champagne thread who helped inspire several choices for this amazing vacation.
I hope this series of posts helps give back to this amazing community.
Now, let’s get to the wine…starting with, Champagne.
Leclerc Briant
After a surprisingly comfortable red-eye flight and a drive into Epernay from CDG, my wife and I made our way to Leclerc Briant for a late afternoon tour and tasting. I had limited experience with the producer (i.e. none) prior to this visit, but left with a wonderful impression of the people and the wines. Our Italian guide was everything we could have asked for, deeply knowledgeable, involved in production, fun, funny, and honest to a fault (she answered every question we could throw at her, and then some).
Leclerc Briant was an early pioneer of biondynamic viticulture in the region, and they’re now among the first to experiment heavily with different aging vessels and materials, everything from glass to terra cotta to oak to titanium to gold, yes, gold. As for the wines, everything showed well from the entry level on up. The NV reserve was fresh, fruit forward, and showed greater texture than most house’s entry level offerings. Similarly, I found Leclerc Briant’s entry level NV rose to have surprising depth for its price point, and I’d absolutely recommend it. As you step into the vintage, single vineyard, and prestige cuvées things start to get even more interesting. Let’s start with the Abyss, which has made quite a name for itself as one of, if not, the only, champagne in the region to be aged on the ocean floor (in the coastal Atlantic waters near the UK). Each bottle becomes a piece of unique art with the way marine life attaches itself to the bottle. As interesting as that aspect of Abyss is, I found the wine itself to be just good, but not great. Balanced, textural, and good acidity, but lacking depth and any real terroir character, unfortunately. I’m very glad to have tasted it, but I’d be hard pressed to invest the money to buy these at their going rate. A+ for marketing, but a B for the wine itself.
Now, the real winners at Leclerc Briant (for me) were the 2013 D’Avize Blanc de Blanc and the single vineyard, single vintage bottlings. First and foremost, these showed a real sense of place. Which is to say each carried its own style, as opposed to having a house style that overrides all nuance. The 2013 D’Avize BdB is drinking beautifully right this moment, showing both a real freshness along with some secondary and tertiary characteristics. That might sound odd for a 2013, but Leclerc Briant use little to no sulfur dioxide in the production of these wines, so expect a slightly faster aging curve (let’s skip the so2 debate). I bought a bottle of the D’Avize to enjoy back home, it was outstanding and delicious.
Maison Ruinart
As this was my first time in Champagne, I felt the need to experience the deep chalk cellars that the region is known for. @warren_taranow recommended Ruinart, and I couldn’t have been more pleased. I’ve always enjoyed the wines, particularly the Dom Ruinart bottling — as expensive as it may be, it’s one of those that every time you taste you think, okay, I get it.
Our tour guide was a champagne local who has been working in the industry for more than a decade, and been with Ruinart for four years — he had a quick and dry sense of humor that made managing a group of about a dozen a total breeze. At the same time, his knowledge ran deep, and he could answer just about everything related to the wines, the winemaking, and the history.
What made the Ruinart tour so special was not just the Crayeres, which are massive (5 miles in total) and incredibly impressive, but the way Ruinart infuses art throughout the entire experience, including within the Crayeres themselves. In one large Crayere, for example, there’s a light and sound installation that pulls in the day’s weather data, and then generates a unique show reflecting the weather and its relation to typical weather for the region. With temperatures well above the seasonal norm on the day of our visit, the lights and sounds reflected that, creating a sense of strain and anxiety - the kinds of emotions felt, no doubt, by both the vines and the wine growers all across the region that day. Unique and memorable.
The tasting was conducted inside the main building. We opted for the focused study of Chardonnay, which gave us the opportunity to taste three wines. Up first, Ruinart’s NV BdB, which makes up the vast majority of the house’s production. I’ve bought this wine several times and have always found it to be a solid, highly consistent performer, even if there are sometimes more interesting wines to be found at a similar price point. Here, the NV BdB was just that, consistent and delicious. With just two years aging on the lees, the wine develops a surprising amount of autolytic depth that makes this a complete wine no matter how you look at it.
Up next was a new offering from Ruinart which is their Blanc Singulier BdB Extra Brut. This wine sees one additional year on the lees, as compared to the NV BdB, and even more notably, has zero dosage (as compared to the 7 g/l found in the NV BdB). The wine is noticeably dryer, but still maintained great balance. Our guide indicated that this newer cuvée is a bit of an experiment, albeit a much needed one, in how the house might deal with the warming planet in the coming years. It’s a smart move. If you can get your hands on this wine, I think it’s a worthy addition to the cellar.
Finally, the flagship Dom Ruinart 2013. This is one of those wines where the nose alone tells you’re in for something truly special. With a decade on the lees, this 100% Chardonnay wine packs so much depth, autolysis, and nutty goodness. The wine never sees any oak, so it also stays in a largely reductive state through both primary and secondary fermentation, and you get that reduction a bit on the nose, much like so many elite white burgundy producers (PYCM, Roulot, etc.). On the palette the wine lives up to all the excitement on the nose. There’s incredible depth and balance here, and the kind of texture that only comes from using the best grapes and the best parts of the press cycle. I only wish the wine was more affordable so I could make it a regular part of my cellar. But at less than 1% of the house’s total output and a lot of manual work involved in its production, I can understand why the brand sets these things the way it does.
One last thing that really impressed me about Ruinart, the bar. Not only was it beautiful, but they had a four vintage vertical of Dom Ruinart (in magnum) where you could order each by the glass, or make a vertical if you so chose. I haven’t seen anything quite like that, and if I hadn’t just enjoyed my tasting, I’d have surely sat down and gone for that full vertical. Playing right to the wine nerd audience, I love it.
Club Tresors de Champagne (Special Club)
For those unfamiliar, the Club Tresors de Champagne, or, Special Club, is a group of 24 growers who band together to market and sell their wines. The Club promotes quality across all its members, and wines carrying the Special Club designation gain approval through a series of two trials where if three oenologists disapprove of the wine in any way, the wine cannot carry the Special Club label. It’s fair to call these bottles each grower’s tete de cuvees. Special Club operates a tasting room in Reims, allowing easy walk in to taste different member producers’ wines in one convenient spot. We opted for the Special Club tasting, giving us the opportunity to taste higher end vintage cuvées from three Special Club producers.
In this particular lineup, we had the opportunity to taste Gaston Chiquet Special Club 2016, J Lasalle Special Club 2014, and Paul Bara Special Club Brut Rose 2019. The Chiquet was both my wife’s and my preference among the flight, showing good precision, purity, and acidity. The Lasalle was richer, rounder, and showed more dosage than we prefer, particularly standing next to the Chiquet. The Paul Bara rose, which is a wine I’ve enjoyed in the past, was good, but not great, in my opinion. Dominated by red fruit and acidity, it never really showed enough depth and length to get me excited. While there’s no arguing all three wines are well made and high quality, we left Tresors without any purchases to bring home.
more posts to come…
