I felt like I knew a fair amount about Champagne until I read this from the most recent K&L Newsletter:
"Frédéric [Rouzaud] explained to us that Roederer’s position is to disgorge and release Cristal earlier than competing tête de cuvées (the current Dom Pérignon is 2000, the current Salon is 1997), to give Cristal the best chance for ultimate longevity. Like Bernard Launois, he believes that too long on the lees is not the best thing for the wine.“
Can one of the resident Champagne experts help to explain this? Why do so many houses age their library wines with lees and en pointe with a crown cap if lees are not beneficial to aging?
What Roederer is doing is more a stylistic choice than anything else. For most wines, you can get most of the benefit from lees aging the wines 4-8 years, but some top vintage cuvees do better when they go longer. Personally, I think Cristal would be a better wine if it saw at least a couple more years on the lees (the Cristal Rose doesn’t necessarily need it like the regular Brut does, but I think it would benefit from more lees time too).
As for why houses age their wines on the lees, this is also a choice. A lot of houses have done tests on aging older wines and prefer wines aged after disgorgement vs. on the lees, but there is a freshness and concentration aspect of long lees aging that is very attractive. It is this expression that makes a late disgorgement different and often leads to their release/marketing. You also tend to get less dead/bad bottles if you keep the wine on the lees. The downside is that many times a late disgorgement can die out long before an original release (depends on condition of wine at disgorgement and dosage regime).
Overall, there is an optimum time to disgorge a Champagne. Just as too little time can blunt a wine, too long doesn’t always help it either. I usually prefer original disgorgements with age over late releases, but not always.
Funny since the Launois vintage BdB from 2000 is already on the downslope…
Call me a cynic, but does economics and/or market conditions/expectations also possibly come into the calculus?
Peter,
Absolutely. A lot of small guys don’t have room or funds to store wine for a long time so the wines don’t always see the aging that would best benefit them. Diebolt-Vallois is a good case of this. The wines are terrific, but could really benefit from a touch more age IMO.
Also, with the current economy really hitting the big guys hard, they are holding onto bottles longer than normal so the wines are seeing a bit more age than normal in many cases.
Neither of the above really applies to the 02 Cristal as Roederer has plenty of space and cash to store and the 02 was released before the economy really softened.