I’m not sure what the proper way is to qualify the statement, Brad, I just didn’t think Kermit was the first. If it requires multiple offerings, I know Corti had other vintages of Gonet after that offering, the one that I linked was just the first one I found on their archive, so I know they brought them in longer. And while Kermit is well-known now as a national importer, I don’t think he started national distribution until later in the '80s (although I’m not positive of the exact date), so if he hadn’t that would have just been for his Berkeley store. I don’t know if he was the first to ever bring them in to the US, but Billecart-Salmon was Kermit’s first Champagne producer even before Lasalle and Bara, although obviously not a grower.
Kermit definitely wasn’t the first - you are correct on that. You can go back well before even 1969 and find smaller producer/grower Champagnes in the US. Kermit probably gets the credit because he was the first one who was large enough (eventually) to do it for more than just a few stores/restaurants in one general area.
Your answer to the number of grower Champagnes question of 19,000 is actually the number of growers in Champagne and not the number of grower Champagnes. There are somewhere around 5,000 different grower labeled Champagnes made either by the growers themselves or a local co-operative.
Yes, I think I misstated the comment in White`s book. Thanks for clarifying this Brad. There will probably be more to correct in some of the future quizzes. Please keep me in line.
I should also add that the 1976 bottling of Clos du Mesnil was not technically made by the core Krug team, but rather made by the Tarin staff and production facility (that Krug acquired as part of their purchase that included Clos du Mesnil) under the supervision of Krug. To this day, no one seems to know why it was made in this way and why it was tested out in the mid-1980s on a few folks. Krug had already decided that they were going to debut Clos du Mesnil in 1987 with the 1979 vintage and already had the 1980, 81, 82, 83 vintages resting in the cellars with the 85 planned as well. They already believed in the Clos du Mesnil as a wine so it seems odd that any bottles of the 1976 saw the light of day outside of Krug especially as they were labeled as a Tarin wine and not as Krug Clos du Mesnil like the 1979. As for production, it is unknown from what anyone can tell me, but Krug has said it was likely was very small and limited to a few hundred bottles at most; it would make sense to me that a barrel was made and bottled.
Actually, we can get geeky on the Dom Perignon label/brand as well. As you noted, Mercier owned it, never used it, and gifted it to Moet et Chandon when the families from each company were united by marriage in 1927. However, de Venoge actually used the Dom Perignon as a ‘brand’ in the 1800’s. I’m not sure if they owned the rights to the name at the time or if it was public domain/free-wheeling prior to Mercier registering it. My guess is that it was probably public domain/free-wheeling as I’ve been told a number of folks used it in the 19th century. It worked well for Moet as a brand because it made sense - they already owned the Abbey de Hautvillers and the historic vineyards the Abbey used for its wines. Getting the brand name of Dom Perignon brought it all together and made for great marketing.