I’ll guess Reflet d’ Antans, a cuvée based on a “solera.”
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I think with Bereche, it comes down to your tolerance with oxidative champagnes, some people don’t notice it, others do not like it. Bereche actively make champagnes in an oxaditive style, barrels then aging under natural cork with the exception of the Brut Reserve.
Reflet d’Antan is a solera, or to be more correct a vin perpetuelle.
Hure Freres also from Ludes used to copy Bereche but now they have found their own style and are for me better than Bereche. There is no love lost between Bereche and Hure freres.
Compare the Memoires to the Reflet d’Antan taking price into account.
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Interesting! I’ll bring one, but I wonder if this was the Reflet d’Antan, which is their most oxidative (though far from particularly oxidative) wine.
I think people should be careful not to confuse “barrel aged” with “oxidative”. The two are not the same. Bereche’s style is very far from Selosse or Fallon.
Bereche’s wines are particularly popular in Burgundy, for example, not a place with a deep affection for oxidative whites these days.
I’m with you. I find far more of his wines to have excellent freshness and cut as opposed to oxidative character. I think it’s like 1 or 2 (and I can’t even think of what the second one is at the moment) where oxidative is a thing.
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I think it probably was the Reflet because it was oxidative not oaky. I was going through my pictures to find out another instance of when I had Bereche and it was actually a couple of weeks ago at the Champagne Society Gala Dinner. I did not take any mental notes since I was not trying to blind guess this, so I don’t recall if it was oxidative or oaky. I do recall only enjoying the Philipponnat in that flight and actually disliking the Savart. My favorites that night were the Paillard, Ruinart, Peters, Cristal, DP, Philipponnat and Vilmart.
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Yeah, that’s the Bereche base, which isn’t oxidative at all. I wouldn’t have expected it to be overly memorable in that lineup, as it’s the base. That said, it’s one of the few vase wines I buy.
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I have the feeling we are confusing oxidised with oxadative here. If you have visited Bereche, I am sure Raphael will have explained with great pride how they use corks for all the champagnes during the second fermentation. The cork allows a certian amount of oxygen contact with the embryonic champagne. It is probably better to use the term aerobic to avoid confusion, this contact with oxygen speeds up the ripening process and gives the champagne a completely different feel in contrast to when the second fermentation is done under crown caps. This is why I say Bereche’s champagnes are oxaditve, the better word would be aerobic.
Selosse is fascinated by sherry and oxidisation and we are talking about something completely different. As I am sure you have tasted Selosse’s vin clairs , you will know how extreme they can be.
We see this for instance in the maisons who fill the vin clairs into magnums and allow them to age
for ten years under cork before blending them into champagnes. Lenoble is a good example here.
The champagnes have an oxidative character not an oxidised character. As the Reflet d’Antan is a vin perpetuelle, a certain oxidised feel will emerge the older the Vin Perpetuelle is, this adds complexity but if you don’t like oxidisation I would avoid the Reflet d’Antan and try rather the Le Cran, probably the best champagne in Bereche’s portfolio,
For me two interesting variants on the Vin Perpetuelle are Hure Freres and Pouillon. Hure Freres have one of the oldest Vin Perpetuelles, older than Selosse and when one drinks this over a couple of hours, layer after layer reveal themselves, one of the most complex champagnes on the market…
Pouillon calls his a solera although it is a vin perpetuelle, I feel Pouillon is more consistent over the vintages and the Solera is complex but comes across as seamless in contrast to Hure freres.
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“We” are not confusing anything. You used the wrong term. Bereche’s wines are not oxidative.
If the subsequent point that you are making is that Bereche ages his wine in barrel and under cork, he does, yes. This does not make the wine “oxidative”; the Le Cran, his most famous and probably representative wine (though I would not say his best) is the opposite of this.
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You know Greg, as usual we will agree to disagree. I sell champagne and I take it you do as well. If a customer says they do not want an oxadative style champagne then I am not going to recommend them Bereche. I have to live with my recomenndations as I am sure you have to as well.
Customers who I would bracket into the oxaditve champagne drinker categorys tend to levitate towards Bereche.
I would say the 2008 and the 2009 Le cran are two of the best Bereche Champagnes I have drunk.
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I don’t think you can make broad assumptions about oak and cork. You can use either/both and still be reductive and not oxidative (or oxidized). DP P2 is under cork. It isn’t oxidative. Dom Ruinart 2010 is under cork and it isn’t oxidative. Vilmart uses lots of oak and it isn’t oxidative.
Oak will give a different flavor/aromatic impact to the wine than a different vessel and of course will depend on age and size of the oak vessel. Cork will give a different impact to the wine than crown cap; Mytik (or Mytik-like) vs. traditional cork is also different. You can purchase different permeabilities of Mytik and crown cap. There is more to traditional cork than a linear or easy to understand gaseous exchange algorithm. Using cork is not going to give you an oxidative wine. It takes many other variables to get there and cork alone will not. It might get you closer to oxidative/oxidized or it might not.
Even if you say aerobic rather than oxidative, any closure can be considered aerobic.
Years back, I sat with Raphael and Vincent (and others) a couple times as he was contemplating the move from crown cap to cork. We tasted blind the range with the second fermentation under cork and crown. In most cases, it was unanimous that the cork wine was superior and when it wasn’t unanimous, it was a majority in favor of cork. For Bereche’s winemaking, cork was a better match (for other winemakers it might not be). It brought an extra dimension of texture and richness to the wines that made them more appealing to me. Cork also has its challenges with variability, workflow, and other areas at high volumes so it wasn’t used for the Brut Reserve, but I wish it was. Overall, I will say that Bereche’s winemaking is on the oxidative side of the spectrum. Reflet d’Antan is the most extreme example in the lineup, but the entire range has seen some releases where the wines swung much more to the oxidative side.
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I just returned from my weekly visit to the Champagne today, here is a bit of champagne porn for you,
I am open for serving suggestions.
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For me, the best Bereche I have had is the 2006 L’Instant Rose. Just a beautiful wine and, of course, even better in Magnum. I also adored the pre-2011 releases of Reflet d’Antan when the dosage was higher, and the perpetual reserve was the original blend and still clean.
I still like the Bereche wines and Le Cran is wonderful, but there were quite a few ups ands downs across the range in the 2010s as they changed the winemaking and tried some new things before settling in. You have mentioned Hure and I have come to prefer Hure to Bereche. What Francois and Pierre have done in such a short time after taking over from their father is astounding. Lots of oak is used, but the wines are not oxidative or oxidized. Memoire is the cleanest, most precise, chiseled perpetual reserve wine out there (I’m not counting anyone who just started their perpetual reserve a few years ago). An overlooked gem and I am amazed they have never had any problems, had to get rid of a portion, or had to essentially start over by adding a very large majority of younger wines. Francois has a skilled hand in the winery and his magic hand reminds me a bit of Laurent Champs who is down the road in Rilly. Different styles, but skilled with oak in the cellar, very precise, and reductive not oxidative.
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I think Hure Freres have taken a long time to find their style, now they have and the champagnes across the range are fantastic. I am particularly enamoured with their Blanc de Blancs Inattendue.
I like Bereche but they are becoming too aggressive with their prices. I personally do not think the champgnes are at the level Rafael beleives them to be.
With the cork thing, Rafael spent half an hour explaining to us the benefits of cork and why they used them and the oxaditive benefits played a large part in his reasoning.
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I know Raphael likes to talk about the oxygen impact on the wines from the cork. I don’t fully agree as I think his wines are already on the oxidative side prior to bottling. I can see how the cork can highlight some of the richer oxidative or oxidative leaning characteristics, but I think it is more complex than cork = oxygen exchange. For Raphael’s wines, I agree that cork is a better choice for his winemaking style which happens to be on the oxidative side.
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broken record here, but the champagne threads on this board are by far the most interesting and filled with insane levels of experience. so, thanks!
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I agree. We have drifted pretty far off topic, but it has been very interesting and educational.
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Sorry Jon. We have destroyed your good intentioned thread.
I am hopeful that Champagne will settle in to a new normal, but it may just keep going up, up, up. We really were spoiled through the late 90s and most of the first two decades of the 2000s as prices were fairly stable and in some cases decreased (Cristal, Comtes, Grande Dame, Dom Ruinart, Krug Grande Cuvee are all examples). The most popular small producers started to shoot up around 2005 (Selosse and Vilmart a little sooner), but the large producers held steady and even failed at attempts to raise prices.
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I subscribe to this viewpoint. As much as I admire Comtes, for example, I don’t particularly prefer it young.
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If you’re open to trying Savart again, I’d recommend “Accomplie” with 2+ years post disgorgement. I like Savart’s wines, but don’t like “Ouverture.” Or, if you can find a bottle, 2013 Mont Benoit or 2013 Mont Chretiens.
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