Grower Champagne Seminar notes

WINE TALK
1

Very long. Almost tl;dr length.
I put some rough pricing after each wine because the prices have come down locally (for which I am glad!)

Champagne Seminar, October 6, 2009
Hotel Commonwealth, Boston

Fashionably late per usual, I missed the Jean Milan “Carte Blanche” Brut NV that was poured by the welcoming committee. I did go back later and found it quite tasty, not much different than previous iterations.

I had been hoping for a walk-around tasting, but Terry Theise’s portfolio was being featured as a seminar, which means sitting through the whole thing and not being able to just go straight to the Vilmart and Billiot. AND you can’t escape! Well, this one turned out to be pretty fun with a blind tasting in the middle.

Varnier-Fanniere “Grand Cru” Brut NV
Crispy citrus and apple aromas escape with each bubble pop. Apparently this is a blend of '05 and '06. Darn tasty and relatively cheap ($50 ish). 100% Chardonnizzle from the Cote de Blizzle, blah blah blah. Yummy!

Pierre Peters “Cuvee Speciale” Les Chetillons Brut 2000
OK. Now we’re rockin’! Seashells and fruit on the nose. The body is dense, tense, vivid, with some cheese rind and ripe fruit curd. This single-vineyard is a parcel of Le Mesnil that is within an arm’s length of Krug’s CdM vines. Under $100 and stupidly delicious.

Gaston Chiquet “Carte Verte” Tradition Brut NV
Fullish aromas of yellow fruit with a hint of chalk in the background. The mouthfeel is lush and dense, but it comes off with an airy attitude, like a Bond-girl, beautiful and complex. There’s something going on underneath here and I’d love to retry this wine after it settles into its skin. Just about $40 now.

Marc Hebrart “Special Club” Brut 2004
The Special Club bottle is shaped like a caveman’s club. That’s where they get the name. No? Oh well.
Less than enthralling wine. Probably better to use the bottle as the club in my bad joke.

Chartogne-Taillet “Cuvee Ste Anne” Brut NV
Where I used to find a vein of white chocolate running, I now find lemon curd. The son has taken over here and changing the dosage levels. He’s backed off by two-thirds and it shows. This is softer and simultaneously leaner than his Dad’s wines. The richness of C-T is still there, but now it comes with bright, balanced acidity. I’m a fan at $40!

Lallement Brut NV
Greens! Sassafras! Sufferin’ succotash! If you like hay (not you Alex!), crystaline minerality, and an overall vegetal character in your Champagne, then buy this. Very lean and clean. Around $50, go nuts. Me, no thanks.

Blind Tasting Time! WOOOO!
There were 6 wines poured double-blind for the seminar guests at this point. All we were told was that 3 were Terry Grower Champagnes and 3 were former Grandes Marques. Interesting!

Wine #1
Smelled like soap and confectioner’s sugar. Tasted bland and insipid. “Geez, I hope this isn’t Terry’s” I thought. I guessed Moet Imperial on aroma alone.

Wine #2
Clean, crisp aromas. The body was dry and minerally, reminding me of a night of hedonistic oyster slurping. I mentally reviewed Terry’s portfolio and came up with a few guesses, but didn’t write anything down. Definitely Grower though.

Wine #3
Skunks. Sulfur and poop. I guessed Clicquot on the first sniff and didn’t bother tasting it.

Wine #4
The effervescence released a hint of ripe, but not sweet, fruit. The body was elegant and fullish with plenty of balancing acidity. If this isn’t Terry’s I’m surprised. No guess.

Wine #5
Funky sulfur again. Tastes of ridiculous amounts of dosage and lacks any clarity of flavor. Bitter. Why bother making this?

Wine #6
Milky aromas. The flavors washed across the palate in a dense and delicious wave. Spectacular acidity and poise. I guessed Billiot because it blew my mind on the spot. Really special whatever it is.

The reveal:
Wine 1: Nicholas Feuillatte Brut NV - too expensive at $25
Wine 2: Gimonnet Cuis 1er Cru Brut NV - I should have known, so tasty! $45
Wine 3: Veuve Clicquot Brut NV - nailed it and it sucked. $35 is too much.
Wine 4: Rene Geoffroy “Expression” Brut NV - darn good for $45-ish
Wine 5: Moet Imperial NV - what a dog at any price
Wine 6: H Billiot Reserve Brut NV - nailed it and it rocked! New lower price $50

AND MORE WINE!!!

L. Aubry “Le Nombre d’Or Sable Blanc des Blancs”
FUN! 40% Chard, 30% Petit MESLIER (!), and 30% ARBANNE(!!)
Cotton candy in the aromas. Yellow citrus and melon in the body. Only 4 atmospheres and delicious!

Henri Goutorbe Rose NV
100% Grand Cru all from 2005 vintage. 75% Pinot / 25% Chardonnay
Seriously, this smells like strawberry shortcake. The body is juicy and luscious with more strawberries, but there is fantastic acidity keeping it all in check. Finishes dry and meaty. Damn fine Rose!

A. Margaine Demi-Sec NV
Apple cream pie aroma. There is actually quite a bit of seriously ripe fruit and quince hiding here. The body is somewhat angular and perhaps a little too complex to get a read on where this wine wants to be, but I’m willing to retry it in awhile when it is ready. Apparently a blend of the following vintages: 04, 03, 02, 01, 99, and 94. Who knew?

And that was that, so I thought…

On the way out, no notes:
Pierre Peters “Cuvee de Reserve” Brut NV
L. Aubry Brut NV
Rene Geoffroy Rose de Saignee Brut NV
(too tired to taste or remember the last one, another Rose)

And THEN I was able to go home. Was fun!

2

I love me some Billiot; $50 is a great price as well!

3

“Skunks. Sulfur and poop. I guessed Clicquot on the first sniff and didn’t bother tasting it.”

Does the Champagne Warrior wanna comment on this? I got the same thing at a party last week and drank beer instead.

4

Roberto, it’s brutally obvious that the wine was purchased, in bottle, from a cooperative and labeled by Clicquot after heavy dosage. The coop clearly harvested unripe for volume, Chaptalized, and used too much sulfur to stabilize.

The same is true for the other former Grande Marques: bitter core with disturbing sweetness on both ends.

5

Great notes from an interesting tasting, Peter. Thanks. I will say, however, that the grande marques he picked sort of pre-determined the outcome of the blind tasting. Seriously, Veuve? Does anyone take it seriously these days? NF? I would like to see the results if it re-run with Pol Roger, Bolly, and maybe the Mumm de Cremant (a little sweet but fun). I wonder if it would be as easy to separate good from evil.

6

I’ll throw my thanks in too. Great notes!!!

7

Neal, if you were selling Terry Theise Champagnes would you serve the best of the former Grandes Marques or the worst? [whistle.gif] Include DP, La Grande Dame, and Palme d’Or instead of the basic bottles from these Houses and I don’t think the results would vary by much.

I suggested another tasting for this Winter, a more comprehensive one at that. We could put together a group of 12 to 14 Bubbleheads and pour wines from across the board.

8

Good to see these grower champers strutting their stuff but I agree that the comparisons were not designed to showcase the grand marques in a good light.

Also, the price of these grower champagnes has taken a great leap forward in the last several years. What’s with that?

Al

9

Roberto,

Not too much to comment on. The LVMH wines are known to show quite a bit of sulfur when young. I’m not overly sensitive so it normally doesn’t bother me, but it does bother some. Even when I get a lot of sulfur on the nose, I can look past it and the palate is normally better. I’m not saying the Moet, Clicquot, or NF are great wines as I don’t drink any of the three except to check in for journalistic purposes.

The choice of these three does stack the deck as the styles are very different to the rest of the wines and all wines are chosen in a way to really make the negatives stand out, but they are very popular so in the end, the choices make sense. To be a bit more equal, I would have chosen a Vintage Moet, Clicquot Rose (NV or Vintage), and Brut Extreme NF as things would have been more interesting. However, even then, the Billiot would walk all over everything and the Geoffroy would have likely come out shining too.

As far as the wines go, the NF Brut has always been ordinary and boring. I’m not a fan. The White Star/Imperial is not my style, but it has improved a great deal in the last 2 years. Clicquot’s NV has slowly been improving over the last 5-6 years. It isn’t what it once was, but it is a good deal better than it was early this decade. Age does it well too. Again, I don’t drink it much as there is better out there, but they are improving.

I’m also convinced that many LVMH wines are damaged once they leave the importer warehouses (due to distributor or store damage). In my area it is quite bad with almost no refrigeration for a lot of the big guys until recently. Now you do get some warehouse temp control, but all bets are off once the trucks leave. Better get your Krug 1st thing in the morning or you are SOL. LVMH is taking this seriously and I hope things improve. Nothing like getting Clos d’Ambonnay delivered in the middle of a 100 degree heat wave.

Finally, Clicquot does not practice Sur Lattes and I wish people would stop assuming things. Say their wines suck or that they are evil and big, but don’t make stuff up when you don’t have a clue. Almost no big gun has done it recently. Once it was fairly common, but it has been almost eliminated. Surprisingly, most of the labeling of someone else’s wine as your own occurs at the grower level and it has nothing to do with dishonesty, but rather generational or marriage changes combined with who does the disgorging. I find it ridiculous and confusing to the consumer - that is my current bug.

Changing topics, the Hebrart Special Club from 2004 must have been off as that is a killer, killer wine (and I’m not a huge Hebrart fan).

Al - as far as prices go, a lot of growers have raised them due to popularity and the need for capital, investment, etc… This combined with the strong Euro has led to big increases. The big guys can hedge and take a US loss because it is offset by big Euro gains. The small guns can do this to a degree, but not as much. Terry’s portfolio has actually been more stable than most and he should be commended for that.

10

Funny sight from this weekend:

LVMH display in the Hampton NH Liquor Store, with the center being a white hot, internal light. All of the 95 Krugs were hot (not warm, hot) to the touch, as were the NV Krugs, Doms, Cliquot Grande Dames, Ruinart BdBs, etc etc etc.

I was ready to snap up all the Ruinart BdB at $50 minus 15% until I touched the bottles. Wasnt enthused about the bright light shining on them, but would have bought them.

I told the stockguy nearby they should kill the light b/c the warmth is likely damaging the wine (esp long term) and he just shrugged lol.

11

Yes, this was “banned” in January of 2004 by the Union des Maisons de Champagne. It probably is not practiced by the big names any longer as it is a disturbing business practice. I should have instead described the massive tanker trucks that deliver finished still wine to be bottled by Feuillatte et al. [oops.gif]

Now I wish I could taste a “good” bottle Brad! I didn’t find any specific flaws in the wine and I’m quite sensitive to TCA, but it did seems simply muted and plain, to be blunt. I’ll see what I can do about getting a different bottle from Terry.

PMC, you get what you pay for lol
That sort of situation is going to happen in a state-run store. Poor bubbles never saw it coming…

12

Peter,

I haven’t visited NF so I can’t speak from specific experience with them, but since they are a very large co-op bringing in grapes from all over, I would expect they follow normal procedures which would include using trucks. Why are trucks bad? Sure, when you are very small, you can often bring all your grapes into one nearby place and press, vinify, bottle, etc… However, once you grow, you don’t want to be dragging your grapes all over the place and it is much better to press and vinify close to the source hence you will find all sorts of satellite locations for different producers. How do you then move the wine to one place for bottling, blending, etc… you use a truck.

There is far more to gain by using a truck than doing it without where you run the risk of damage. I know that this is an image used by some against the big guys, but that is the best way to do it. Like I said, I have no problem bashing the wines or calling out poor practices, but trucks are not relevant here.

One other point on NF, Nicolas Feuillatte is essentially the top brand of the Cave Vinicole de la Champagne co-op. This co-op produces lots of other wines oustide of NF (NF gets the best grapes so you can only imagine what some of the other wines taste like [wink.gif] ). I note this because you can’t always assume what is pulling up to the NF facilities is strictly for the NF cuvees.

13

Brad, excellent points. Thank you. I suppose my primary issue was just how gawd-awful the non-Grower Champagnes were in mixed company. It simply shocks me that the “Grandes Marques” dissolved because they couldn’t agree on a basic level of quality control for the group. Some of the members (Bollinger was the first) were ready to “take it to the next level” but others were not. And it shows.

So I retasted Aubry, Billiot, Gimonnet, and Rene Geoffroy today at a mobbed trade tasting. Each one was delicious once again. 500+ wines, I tasted only about a dozen. Schmoozing eats up too much time at these things… lame.

14

Peter,

I completely agree that the quality of Terry’s portfolio is top notch. You can almost pick up any of his bottles blind and get a hit. Sorry if I ranted a bit about some big house mis-conceptions. I’m not pro big or small guy; I’m pro good wine and lately it is trendy to bash the big guys with info that isn’t necessarily true. I find it funny how the folks who use this marketing approach to attack the big guys also like to say that the big guys are all about marketing. Whatever helps sell I guess. At the end of the day I’m just trying to help the truth come out.

There are some really nice basic NV big house wines. Ruinart BdB, Drappier BdB, Roederer, Pol Roger, Mumm Rose, Henriot BdB, etc… The strange thing with Moet Imperial, Clicqout Yellow Label, etc… is that they sell so even if you and I are not their biggest fan, lots of other folks are so why change a winning formula.

I guess it comes down to drink what you like and you are certainly drinking well.