I ordered 4 bottles of Drappier and one was mistakenly a sans anjou soufre bottling, I drank it first out of fear I guess, but it was fresh and clean-who knows how it would show after a couple years. FM3 suggested a side by side but that didn’t work out.
I’ve had plenty of solid sans soufre bottles that have been solid, but also plenty that have not.
Most sparkling wines do not have much, and generally no free sulfur remaining when they are opened. They don’t need much, but in the fledgling WV sparkling producers group, a few people have chosen not to add any at disgorging and regretted it within a couple of years. Most are settling in at adding 20mg/l at the end of primary ferment and then 5-8 mg/l at disgorging.
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Hey MG, are there any Oregon producers you can recommend that are making them in a completely oxidation free style?
Completely?
As in: stainless ferment, small sulfur add, early tirage?
Michael Lundeen goes to bottle within 2-3 months(tirage in January). He makes some very nice wines, though he is holding more wine back for reserve wine.
I will check in with Andrew Davis and report back on who is minimizing an oxidative period.
Thanks, maybe I should have said ‘reductive’, I’ve read thru that oxidative vs. reductive thread a couple times and it still seems like it’s open for interpretation-not in a bad way just different people different perception.
Thanks again.
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Cedric Bouchard Roses de Jeane Cote Val de Vilaine-so good it was gone before i thought about it. Fresh and sharp acid with an exploion of bubbles that really got our palates ready to drink
2014 La Rogerie Heroine-first time trying…delicious? A good value with the way champagne prices are going? Yes. Worth the hype? Probably not. Yes. It has all the features of a great champagne but, it just isn’t cohesive or exciting. Just like a high school orchestra has all the parts required to play mozart but, they just don’t have what it takes to perform at the Met.
2012 Egly Ouriet-clearly wotn…wow, this wine has it all. Bright lime and golddn apple with a sweet sugar cookie yeastiness to round out the neverending finish. All delivered with a mousse so impossibly fine with bubbles that seem to multiply in your mouth. It made the other wines hard to remember.
Ulysses Colin Les Maillons Rose de Saignee-some champagne really begs for dosage. This rose is super laser like and after the Egly it was almost bitter with the lack of sugar or yeasty notes and the tannin derived from the saignee process. I tend to prefer the low end of brut over zero dosage or extra brut usually…especially in rosé
Enemigo gualtallary was ripe and round and balanced. The barrel component reminded me of that high vanillin sugar cookie character I like in Shafer Hillside Select. Its the kind of red I like to enjoy young.
That clarifies things pretty well.
I think most producers here are trying to walk a line that is reductive but without a lot of reduction showing in the wines.
I would not include us in that, I’m going after sparkling wines with a similar philosophy to how we make white wines with bigger stretches of both oxidative and reductive periods in the wines.
Without trying to hijack this Champagne thread, I would say that many WV sparkling wines lean away from the more oxidative styles. But sparkling wines are a new facet to our regions wine production. Think of Argyl as our Grand Marque house, and some early experimentation by Soter, Elk Cove, and St. Innocent, but the flowering of small producer sparkling in the Willamette Valley is in it’s infancy. We have a lot of growing to do but many of the wines I taste now are head and shoulders above what was being done 5-10 years ago, while still being relatively conservative in production styles.
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Charles Heidsieck Mis En Cave 2001 - 37% Pinot noir, 42% Chardonnay and 21% Meunier. Placed en cave 2001, disgorged 2006 and kept in the Heidsieck caves until this year. golden yellow. Brioche, toffee, caramel, bruised apple, zingy acid in the finish. Tasty stuff from a perfectly aged NV.
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This is a thoughtful, well-written post, Marcus–thank you.
Regarding Cedric’s wines, I used to have a good amount of his Special Club stuff but I didn’t find it excited me more than say the Les Vignes de Mon Village or the Terre d’Illite cuvees (the former for me is what I think is his best work). Besides, those bottle are a royal PITA for me to store, so I’ve long drank through them all and there are no more SC of any kind left to jam up my modest cellar.
FWIW, I’ve been able to visit Cedric a few times now in Cuisles, and that guy, man, he is so full of ideas and energy–he’s a fountain of inspiration, innovation and passion. If you get to Champagne in the future, go visit him. He is a gracious host, and he loves to talk about his inspirations. Just a very cool man.
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2012 Charles Heidsieck Champagne Brut Millésimé (France, Champagne) Local shop has this for $62 so will be drinking it soon.
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Agree! ‘18 and ‘19 both very good. I had ‘20 last night for the first time, and while age may help, I was not as excited. Probably vintage variation but it didn’t have the energy and seve of these past two releases.
Thank you Frank. I’ve enjoyed previous bottles, although Moussé is not a regular of ours.
I think what frustrated me the most about the demonization of sulfur is that it’s become a very BIG debate over something that just isn’t a big deal. And the pervasiveness of the attitude is now as much the tail wagging the dog as anything.
And unfortunately, as this debate gets more attention it also seems to be creeping into the process for a lot of very bright brains with extremely good vineyards.
I respect your thoughts on Cedric Moussé very much, and on Champagne in general. But the two bottles last night made a very strong argument that I should go visit Egly-Ouriet if I visit Champagne. This is a big part of why I posted a negative note.
How many of these very bright and very energetic, hard working vignerons, who can often pop open bottles made by the previous generation that are in fine shape, will see what could be years of their work simply turn out to be wines that last 2-4 years? As much as some ‘sans souffre’ wines last very well, many, many of them do not.
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Thanks for the reply. One thing that I value about you is that you work within the winemaking space, and you have earned the respect of a following, too. So, that to me means a lot, you speak from ‘the doing’.
With me, I don’t seek sans soufre but it does enter some of the wines I enjoy and support. Both Benoit Marguet and Dominique Moreau have some of their range without sulfur. For Dominique, it’s the Concordance and I have noted some bottle variation within that wine, of note her 2016. Some bottles have been on, one or two advanced. With Benoit’s wines, I will need to pay more attention to his no sulfur stuff but I have yet to note anything advanced.
I am not sure for me the topic is of as much ‘attention’ than what you see it to be. I’ll pay some additional attention to it, and I wasn’t aware that 17 Mousse Fortes Terres was sans soufre. Of note, with Cedric, he uses a variation of sulfur in his cuvees. For lack of a better way of saying it, he brews up his own sulfur at his domaine. I’ve talked to him before about it, and he has posted video and photos of it. I believe his premise is that the form/way of his using allows him to approach the use of sulfur with a lower addition. I’m not a winemaker but I do think this might be of interest to you. He is good in responding to messages, maybe you send him a note or poke around and see what I am referring to. Just thought I would mention it.
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$62 is an amazing price for that
Had a 2012 Grande Ruelle that was somewhat advanced (i.e., noticeably more advanced than a 2014 had a number of months before that)
@Mike_C1 I’m not near my cellar…i have some 12 GR. Did Benoit make that sans soufre?
btw-the Moussé had 19ml/l of his homebrewed sulfur added at some point. Not a sans souffre wine but focused on low sulfur.
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Hey Marcus I’m sure you’re busy and again thanks for taking the time, but I have to ask this (although this might be better off in the oxy vs reductive thread)
You said upthread ‘wow do you mean totally stainless’ and then mentioned the brown Chardonnay style so:
Just because it see’s time in oak does that necessarily mean it will have oxidative notes?
Red wine raised in oak doesn’t seem oxidative, is it just the Chardonnay that picks it up?
I love Ramey chards and I’ve heard David Ramey talk about ‘black Chardonnay’ method but I don’t pick up oxidative notes in those.
I guess my question is can a wine sit on the lees for extended time in barrel and have no or very little of that oxidative note?
Thanks in advance,
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I got this from Cedric. But it’s in French…
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FWIW, I am out of the 12 but did have a bottle of it this past April and it was showing well. Note follows…
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2012 Marguet Champagne Grand Cru Extra Brut La Grande Ruelle - France, Champagne, Champagne Grand Cru (4/14/2022)
Bubbleclub--April 2022 (all wines served blind) (Opah in Aliso Viejo, CA): I follow MC2 and their notes but I have to disagree on the take that this is all edges. Last night we had the October 2017 disgorgement, poured blind side by side with the 2012 Les Bermonts. The GR showed peach, apple and then with air the cherry component really shined through, deep red berry signature. Slatey with great complexity and when this became still, it was a pleasure. At 10 years old, no sulfur added and to me no signs of oxidation at all showing.
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