TNR: 2012 Cédric Bouchard Inflorescence Roses de Jeanne Côte de Val Vilaine

WINE TALK
21

Same here.

22

Neal,

I’m sorry that you had trouble finding the review. At least someone published it here. It is a good wine and well worth the price of admission.

The issue is that the wine is officially a NV wine. It is 100% from one vintage, but isn’t aged long enough to be labeled as a vintage wine. Cedric Bouchard’s Les Ursules was also this way until the 2010 vintage which was the first to be an official vintage dated wine as it finally had enough age prior to disgorgement to bear a true vintage date.

I have always labeled the Val Vilaine and other wines like this as an NV and noted which vintage it is from (just like I do with the base vintage for any other NV wine). CT has always published my reviews of this wine as an NV although the 07-09 and 11 reviews are under the NV Inflorescence Val Vilaine wine and the 2010 is under just NV Inflorescence Blanc de Noirs. The 2012 is under the NV Roses de Jeanne Val Vilaine.

I agree that this can be confusing as it is easier to track this wine by the vintage… but it isn’t truly a vintage. You can determine the vintage from the label code and some labels actually list the year, but it isn’t consistent across the board and not everyone knows how to decipher the code (even though it is rather simple). Add in the fact that some people call this Roses de Jeanne, Cedric Bouchard, Inflorescence, Inflorescence Val Vilaine, etc… and you can end up with a bunch of confusion.

I don’t know how you fix this. In a perfect world you could list every NV Champagne by their base vintage, but this is hard for many to determine in most cases so it doesn’t work for the consumer. Even the Val Vilaine doesn’t make it 100% easy for everyone to tell what year it is (except that the 2012 is the first time it is released as a Roses de Jeanne wine). You still have to understand the code (though it is a simpler one and some markets actually get a clearly printed year).

I’m open to changing how I notate these wines as my initial instinct is to label it as a vintage since it is a pure vintage. That said, where do you draw the line? There are a good number of NV wines that are made year after year from one vintage and make it very difficult for you to tell which vintage it is from (codes not as clear as Cedric Bouchard’s). Trusting the info from the retailer/importer isn’t always reliable either I’ve learned. Is it best to notate the NVs that are 100% vintage as a vintage wine as long as it is fairly easy for most folks to determine which vintage it is from?

23

How about listing it (at least on the CT end) as “2012-NV” (or “NV-2012”) and then explaining in the text

BTW, the Rare Wine price is $62.50 by the 6-pack. I may end my moratorium

24

What Brad says.

At CT, we try to balance the various demand. The nut is - as Brad notes - more than a few things we (the savvy ones) think we know are wrong or in enough of a minority that communication with everyone else (like retailers where people buy the wine) gets too noisy.

I appreciate the feedback and we try our best to meet these requests for more accurate information. I just ask you respect we often have good reasons when we don’t.

A.

25

Neal - I happen to have the V12 which was disgorged in April 2014. I need a Champers to drink tonight with sushi and this will be perfect. I will let you know what I think. I starting buying this with V10 which I thought was really good. V11 is just ok in my mind.

26

I am less (far less) concerned with the arcana of Champagne’s rules for what is and is not a “vintage” wine, and much more concerned about being able to find a wine when I search for it. If it is listed as NV and only as NV, how am I supposed to find the version of the wine made with 2012 grapes, or distinguish it from all the other NV wines made with very different raw materials?

Just for giggles, this is how Rare Wine lists it: 2012 Cédric Bouchard Roses de Jeanne Côte de Val Vilaine. That’s how I searched for it, this pops up as the CT match: “2012 Roses de Jeanne / Cédric Bouchard Champagne Blanc de Noirs Côte de Val Vilaine,” which certainly looks like (a) a vintage wine, and not just that, (b) the vintage wine I was looking for. It lists no Cham. Warrior review. So something is wrong in the way the wine is listed in your database

27

Not to be pedantic or defensive, but you neglect another option : Something is wrong with the way the retailer lists it. They should list as NV with a note that it is all 2012. . Retailer description lack of precision is probably the number one source of confusion in CT.

If you look at the review from CW on the NV (and this is true across a lot of wines and reviewers), it does specify particulars that are important. Any wine that is not just vintaged has this problem - Madeira, Colheita Ports, etc.

A.

28

Is there a vintaged version of a wine called “Cédric Bouchard Roses de Jeanne Côte de Val Vilaine?”

29

I don’t know. I don’t think there is currently. Ursules is the only one I know for certain.

We can force these reviews to the vintaged wine (and are discussing this), but it doesn’t really solve the problem which is that there are at least two equally valid ways to reference this wine. We make it work for this case and then it doesn’t work for another.

I am sorry we failed what you want CT to do for you. We try our best and we recognize the frustration when our efforts are just not enough to match the fluidity of the situation.

A.

PS - I love CB’s wines. You can find me defending them here on WB. One of my top 5 Champers, so this get personal for me.

30

I have had the '12 offered at $65 for the past eight months. No 6pk required…
Offer for the new releases later this summer.
I’ve had the '12 maybe ten times now. Every time, people are happy.

31

Hey, I’m a big fan, and apologies are not necessary.

But of the two valid ways to reference the wine (unless I misunderstand) one would associate the wine with the grapes in the bottle, and every year you’d have a new entry, specific to the wine, and a new set of professional and user reviews about that specific wine. The other way, because the 2012, 2011, and 2010-grape-versions of the wines are all going to be lumped together in a single entry, and a single set of reviews; independent searching would not be possible. If the principle goal is to make the content as user-accessible as possible, it seems to me an easy choice to make.

32

Thanks Robert. I am sort of shocked I had never been to your site; fixing that tonight.

BTW, I see that Robert lists the wine as 2012 Cedric Bouchard Roses de Jeanne Val Vilaine Blanc de Noirs

33

Neal,

No, there isn’t; just an NV. In fact, the only official “NV” left in the Cedric Bouchard stable is the Val Vilaine. We’ll have to see if it stays that way, but it is such a tasty young treat that I’m not convinced aging longer on the lees will really make it better - just more expensive.

As to the other points in this discussion - there is no right answer. Some people will refer to this wine as an NV and others a vintage. For someone like me, you can make a good point that I should classify it as a vintage as only Champagne geeks are going to subscribe to my newsletter. That is why I clearly note that the wine is the 2012 blend. CT has a very different audience than The Champagne Warrior and needs to satisfy more than just the Champagne geeks. That said, I wonder if there is a way to list the reviews in two places. Both under the NV entry and the vintage entry. Seems like that could solve the problem, but no clue how much work that would be.

34

Yup, labelled like that on my site not for its technical status as a declared vintage wine (it is “technically” a NV wine, not aged long enough sur latte to be a vintage wine), but for the more familiar reality among those who know Cedric’s single vintage, single grape variety, single parcel approach that it is the 2012 base wine.
It is what it is, I guess.
[thumbs-up.gif]

35

You know I am a huge fan of both CT and your work, Brad, but to me it isn’t correct to say “there is no right answer.” Coming from a client service background (and a career in retail before that) the right course is always to ask “what will make this most useful to the customer.” List it where and how it will find its way to the users. If it can be listed two ways, fine. If not, the way it is listed on CT now merely compounds the confusion created by selling NV wines (“is the one I am buying the one that got such good notices”) that has led you to rail against the absence of label info.

So for me the right answer seems obvious: list it with the year in which the grapes were picked, and then note in the body of the review that “this isn’t technically a ‘vintage’ wine” etc etc etc.

BTW (and finally, I promise) as I noted above, CT actually does list it with the vintage date (if you search for 2012 Bouchard Vilaine this is the one that pops up); it simply doesn’t link to your review. That seems to me to be the worst of both worlds.

OK, I am done. Thanks for all the info, everyone.

36

Neal–The wine is great.Buy some. That was the original question.
It is the only wine I buy a case per year. It tends to be least expensive when it is first arriving in the fall. I paid $50 plus shipping last November. It ages well.

37

I’ve been drinking this wine for several years now, and I think the 2012 is the best I’ve tasted. I love its pronounced flinty minerality, and there’s lots of depth to the wine. I’d be buying a good amount. I find Cedric Bouchard’s wines to be wildly variable, with some so underperforming that I think he should have sold off the fruit or base wines rather than bottling them as they are, but this is a huge winner.

38

You know, of course, that telling me that I could have had it for $50 makes me less likely to buy, right? [swoon.gif] [worship.gif]

Yeah, I am likely to buy a six pack. $62.50 is not $50, but it is now cheap-normal for this wine, I have enjoyed it a lot in the past, and I am just about out of the bottles I cellared.

Thanks everyone. Very helpful info as always

39

Thanks for beating the drum more on this, Neal.

I get Brad’s argument with respect to the producers who have difficult-to-decipher codes (or worse, no codes), but as he points out, CB is not one of them (at least for bottles brought in through official importer channels to the US). But it’s even worse for Prevost. There is literally no reason why CT should have an entry for NV La Closerie, when the vintage is clear as day on the front(!) label (LC10, or whatever). I see 25(!) linked professional reviews on that entry, all of which mention the base vintage in the text of the review, and many of which are actually duplicates. Talk about customer confusion!

40

I also love this wine. In fact, I served the 2010 at my wedding last year. I’ve had the 2012 twice already and it’s terrific. From what I’ve tasted 2012 seems like the best Champagne vintage since 2008. It will certainly benefit from a bit of age.