I am doing a deep dive in Champagne these days and want to wrap my head around various producer styles. This may have been covered before (but my search did not find anything), but has anyone attempted to classify Champagnes by producer style? I recall Keith Levenberg years ago plotting on an x-/ y- axis various Red Burgundy producers and I found it very helpful. Perhaps on the x axis for Champages would be a range between austere/chalky and rich/round. And then on the y axis a range between lemon/fruity and bready/yeasty. Thoughts?
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It sounds like no one has such a chart handy. Can anyone identify a few reference points along each proposed axis?
This seems like a worthy pursuit but this would be an undertaking with a lot of effort. It’s a big area, a lot of producers and a lot of data to array.
For me, I have tried to settle in on the producers I like, who are mostly organic/bio with some range of zero to low dosage. Inside of that definition I can then land on a handful that I support and follow. So, should you get something going, I can give my take on the 6-8 producers that float my boat.
Good luck!
Thank you Frank. And I agree, this is an undertaking that will require a lot of effort so I may spitting against the wind. For red burgundy, the task was somewhat simpler since we were dealing with a single grape and 3200 domaines. Whereas, with Champagne, we have 5 times as many producers utilizing as many as 3 different grapes. That being said, perhaps the first step is whether I am even thinking about style classification correctly. Consider Laherte Freres . On the fruit vs. yeasty spectrum, I would say it definitely is on the more fruity side, and of the fruit, more citrus than orchard fruit. As for mouthfeel, it is definitely on the angular, mineral side moreso than the rich, round size. You seem to have a great deal of experience with Laherte Freres, is that the case with all of their cuvees or just the Brut Nature?
Jeff, I find the Laherte Freres range to be as you listed. Plenty of minerality, zesty flavor, citrus and fruit. I did find some of the Longues Voyes (Pinot Noir, some dosage) recently to be a bit 7-Up in tone, but I also had it alongside the Marie Courtin Efflorescence (also Pinot noir, no dosage) so perhaps the comparison that day was a bit unfair to make. Interestingly (at least to me), I find Aurelien’s Brut Nature (Chardonnay, no dosage) to be anything but angular. That is a terrific bottle, as is the Rose De Meunier (Pinot Meunier, a kiss of dosage) and nothing angular about that wine, too.
There was a thread on reductive vs oxidative styles that may be of some help.
https://wineimport.discoursehosting.net/t/reductive-non-oxidative-champagne/175124/25
7, not 3.
And some producers even use unauthorized varieties, so even 7 is not enough.
Although I admit that the three main varieties cover around 99% of the production. ![[truce.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/d/d33e712b50d5efc2425bf219c404fbdb7ed0ba50.gif "truce"){kind=small}
Otto, very interesting. What are the other 4 grapes?
Arbanne
Pinot Gris
Pinot Blanc
Petit Meslier
There are producers who use these grapes if you want to try them on their own. Vouette et Sorbe Textures comes to mind right away and Tarlant has the BAM as a 3 rare grape blend. Agrapart’s Complantee is a 7 grape blend and deliciously different from their chardonnay bottlings
I would love to see this, and contribute where I can. I really like those two axis you propose. Just to poke one hole in it I’m not sure lemon/fruity vs bready/yeasty is exactly right. You can have a champagne with very high autolysis (bready/yeasty character), which can also have lots of fruit. You can also have Champage with low autolysis, which is not very fruity and focuses more on mineral.
In my mind the most useful would be one axis to be richness (high/low) and the other to be autolysis (high/low).
Dosage is a useful thing too, but obviously while some producers are know for a certain dosage level (Tarlant comes to mind), other have a bit more of a range. I suspect that dosage and richness have some similarity and will follow eachother to a point (Krug and Bollinger would be higher richness and both more dosage than the trend toward toward zero), but then you could have exceptions like producers who age vin clair in barrel but do no dosage, which would probably rate high on richness for the rich aromatics and mouthfeel, while not having a lot of dosage.
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Have Gerbais L’Originale (extra brut Pinot Blanc) lined up for the holidays. Pretty jazzed to try it.
Yup, these. Then there is Lahaye’s Le Jardin de la Grosse Pierre, which doesn’t have Pinot Gris, but all the other six varieties plus Chasselas, Gros Plant (Folle Blanche, maybe?) and “Teinturier” (a teinturier Gamay, perhaps?).
I’ve also heard of some Gamay grown in Champagne, but never seen it appear in any blends.
It’s quite easy to find some Pinot Blanc champagnes, as relatively many make those. Varietal Petit Mesliers are quite rare, I think only two make varietal Arbannes and I’ve heard of only one producer making 100% Pinot Gris Champagne (as there is only an acre or three of Pinot Gris planted in Champagne, so apart from one single producer, no other producer has enough Pinot Gris to make a varietal Champagne batch of reasonable size.
Along those lines:
Etienne Calsac released a similar blend of Pinot Blanc, Petit Meslier, & Arbane called Les Revenants
Laherte Freres has a 100% Petit Meslier that I have teed up
And of course Cedric Bouchard also makes a 100% Pinot Blanc (La Boloree)
These types of wine interest me, I need to search out the Agrapart bottling you reference - looks to be a grand cru version of the NV 7 crus bottling?
There are really more than 15,000 Champagne producers?
Aubry makes some Champagnes with the “less popular” grapes as well.
I would really appreciate seeing this breakdown as well…
Brad is amazing but wasn’t the last issue in 2017?
The Agrapart 7 Crus is 90% Chardonnay and 10% Pinot Noir from seven vineyards.
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Ahh, thanks Chris - I was under the wrong impression. appreciate the clarification.