TN's: Terroir of Champagne, Montagne de Reims

[George_Pavlov]

A pleasure to see your notes on here, Cris. And Paul, too. I’m really pleased with the response to these tastings, and I sincerely appreciate all the feedback on the wines.

Cris - I may be mistaken, but I don’t think you attended the other two tastings in the series (I: Cote des Blancs; III: Vallee de la Marne), but would love to see Paul’s notes from the other two if he has them…or from Cris if you did attend either.

BTW, we just held the big annual TT Champagne trade tasting on Monday, and the 2002 Peters Chetillons was probably the wine of the tasting (in the company of 85 other Champagnes). It will be a little more expensive than the 2000 (or the 2001), but more than worth the small extra premium. It will also probably be relatively scarce until January or later, and may prove particularly hard to procure toward the end of the season until more replenishes from France.

[Cris_Whetstone]

@George Pavlov

A pleasure to see your notes on here, Cris. And Paul, too. I’m really pleased with the response to these tastings, and I sincerely appreciate all the feedback on the wines.

Cris - I may be mistaken, but I don’t think you attended the other two tastings in the series (I: Cote des Blancs; III: Vallee de la Marne), but would love to see Paul’s notes from the other two if he has them…or from Cris if you did attend either.

BTW, we just held the big annual TT Champagne trade tasting on Monday, and the 2002 Peters Chetillons was probably the wine of the tasting (in the company of 85 other Champagnes). It will be a little more expensive than the 2000 (or the 2001), but more than worth the small extra premium. It will also probably be relatively scarce until January or later, and may prove particularly hard to procure toward the end of the season until more replenishes from France.

No, I was not able to attend the other two tastings George. But I would have GLADLY attended the TT tasting if I had known about it.

[Jiles_Halling]

Sorry that I 've found this topic rather late in the day but better late than never maybe.

I enjoyed reading the comments and was struck by the discussion of the merits of various vintages, especially the 2001.

I’ve always felt that vintage champagne, whilst being fascinating and wonderful to taste, is not what champagne is all about. First and foremost champagne is a blended wine i.e a non-vintage.
It’s on the NV that each house stakes its reputation and on the quality of the NV that it would wish to be judged.

Vintage champagne is an opportunity for the wine maker to show what he or she can do. Perhaps it’s the difficulty of producing a vintage in difficult years that leads some makers to take on that challenge ?

If you subscribe to this point of view ( and I’d love to get your opinions on this) a discussion on different vintages isn’t going to give you a real insight into what each house is all about.

Last but not least, if anyone is coming over to Champagne do get in touch to see if I can help you. I live here, my wife runs a great B & B and we know a lot about the area

[Steve_Nordhoff]

BTW, we just held the big annual TT Champagne trade tasting on Monday, and the 2002 Peters Chetillons was probably the wine of the tasting (in the company of 85 other Champagnes). It will be a little more expensive than the 2000 (or the 2001), but more than worth the small extra premium. It will also probably be relatively scarce until January or later, and may prove particularly hard to procure toward the end of the season until more replenishes from France.[/quote]

Hard to disagree with that, although I thought the Vilmart Coeur de Cuvees (both 1997 and 01) were spectacular.
The Thiese catalog runs from very good to crazy good, really hard to go wrong.
Good to meet you George.

[George_Pavlov]

Good to meet you, too, Steve.

Yes, of course the CdC is always exceptional, and as has been stated elsewhere ad nauseum, along with Clos des Goisses, it is usually Champagne’s best wine in the strange/off vintages. Terry actually called the 2001 the “best young Champagne” he tried that year, and “perhaps one of the best ever,” or something like that. The '97 in magnum is sublime, though I might be inclined to actually give the edge to the '98 over the '97 CdC. I suspect the '98 might be in a dumb phase at the moment (see the TT catalog for a discussion of this…) but I think it will emerge eventually as the stronger of the two.

[Brian_G_r_a_f_s_t_r_o_m]

@Cris Whetstone

@Guillaume Deschamps

@Cris Whetstone

I’m certainly no expert in this regard but I think it needs some more time to show its best but it doesn’t strike as one for the ages. I looked back at some of my notes in CT and the 2000 seems to hit me as stronger and deeper. The 2001 came off like a more medium term wine. The fruit didn’t seem to show a lot of concentration.

2001 was a particularly bad vintage in Champagne (and that might be the understatement of the year), actually before your TN about the Vilmart I was aware of only one other vintage bottling in 2001…

I haven’t heard that it was bad but I know its not one a lot declared in. Several others have though including Pierre Peters and one of those is the best PP I have tried.

Ashley and I had a chance to taste this while visiting Vilmart yesterday and both of us thought it was the best of the tasting, with the '04 Cuvee d’Or (?) right on its tail. What especially struck me about Vilmart was how good their NV bottlings are.