Which Champagne are you drinking?

[David_H_i_l_l_e_y]

An adventure with 1985 Dom Perignon.

I had bought two bottles of '85 Dom in 2023, one from France (to pad out an order), one from the US (at K&L auctions). We had a friend’s March bday and 85 is the birth year, so it seemed like a good occasion to try!

One bottle had a damaged label, while the K&L bottle was pristine and even came with the gift box. The pristine one had a US importer label on the back while the damaged one didn’t have any label on the back. The damaged one had a little green “Republic of France” seal on the neck foil, while the pristine one didn’t. Their front labels look different too: the pristine one says “Appellation D’origine Contrôlée” and says “Produce [sic?] of France” while the damaged label says “elabore par Champagne”.

So I opened the damaged label one first. The foil was in good shape and there wasn’t any seepage. However, when I went to twist the cork it just spun in place, so clearly this wasn’t a great seal.

It was absolutely flat, no sign of bubbles, and it was an orange color. The nose was Sherry, but it didn’t taste like the nose. The flavor was not bad. However, the bottle being totally flat on opening was clearly not what you want to see.

I opened the other one and as I twisted the cork, I could tell there was resistance and a good seal. I got a very little “hiss” of carbonation when I opened. When pouring I could see little wisps of carbonation and as the bottle warmed up a bit later the mousse was more active. You could tell by the mouthfeel that this was qualitatively different.

Both corks for comparison (left is flat bottle, right is better bottle):

I restoppered both and put them in the fridge and we tasted them about 2h later.

• The better bottle had a very gently carbonated creamy mouthfeel and the flavor was honey and nuts with some gentle acidity and fruit. It kind of had a cider-y thing going on. But IMO the finish was a bit on the short side.

• The other bottle was basically just… oxidized flat champagne. Although the flavor wasn’t bad.

Overall, IMO this exercise was interesting and educational but the better bottle wasn’t as complex as some of the other >35 year old champagnes I’ve had. I poured out the flat bottle but Coravin’d the better one… one night it’ll give it some more air and come back to it and see how it evolves.

[B_Davies]

I wonder what the sparkling wine coravin would do to aged bottles of Champagne… basically sodastreaming them back to life.

[Warren_Taranow]

I haven’t really looked into that version. It would be awesome if it was effective for days or weeks, but color me skeptical. Does anyone have some firsthand experience with the sparkling Coravin?

[David_H_i_l_l_e_y]

@Warren_Taranow

Does anyone have some firsthand experience with the sparkling Coravin?

I use it pretty regularly.

It works pretty well in my experience. It’s not perfect, but I find I can take a bottle of Cristal, drink half, Coravin it, pick it up two weeks later and it’s maybe 90% of what it was before.

I’ve find it sometimes takes a little bit of time after de-pressurizing for the flavor to normalize.

I have found it does change the mousse to some extent. Two examples:

• I had a bottle of Rare 2013 that I kept for 3 weeks and I noticed that the bubbles were bigger and less refined.

• I had a bottle of 1971 Piper-Heidsieck Hors Serie that I was giving tastes to friends over time. After 1 night on Coravin it was basically tasting the same as the day I opened. After 1 week, still pretty close. After 3 weeks (2 weeks after last taste, and 2 rounds of re-sealing) it was kinda getting weird and having it sitting in the re-pressurized bottle had caused it to become more carbonated than the starting point.

Another experience: at NyE I popped a Dom P2 02 that was unpleasant to everyone… it was like overwhelming with the smell of gunpowder. I Coravin’d it and kept it for a night or two, opened again, same thing. Coravin’d for two more weeks, same thing. One more week, same thing and I decided to keep it with a regular stopper overnight to get air contact. After that, it was finally drinkable. So it does effectively guard against oxidation for a pretty long time… in this case it was preventing the wine from “getting air” that it needed, but it was pretty stable for weeks.

[David_H_i_l_l_e_y]

@B_Davies

I wonder what the sparkling wine coravin would do to aged bottles of Champagne… basically sodastreaming them back to life.

I’ve noticed a very mild re-carbonation effect for almost flat champagnes (e.g. the 1971 I mentioned) but it happens quite slowly (e.g. a week or more) and hits a relatively low peak state.

Here’s the mousse for the '85 Dom after 24h on Coravin (large bubbles are from a turbulent pour). It looks the same as what we saw on the day we opened it… basically a shimmer of tiny bubbles that dissipate within seconds.

[scottkieser]

Dosnon Recolte Blanche:

The first glass of this impressed me. It’s very intensely flavored with a long finish, subtle nuances from well integrated barrel aging and reserve wines, and it is among the most overtly mineral champagnes I have tasted. Massive salinity. It didn’t wear so well over the course of the evening, however. The intensity relies on overly ripe fruit and there is little in the way of autolytic complexity. It ultimately comes across as hollow. The $79-$89 asking price is outrageous.

[B_Davies]

Appreciate the thorough response! I have access to it wholesale and even the wholesale price is sort of I’ve read up on others having somewhat good experiences with it. A local restauranter here tested it on a double mag and dumped so much gas into it… held it for 3 weeks and held up fairly well. The re-carbonation is really interesting. When customers ask about sparkling wine I explain in Champagne the CO2 really feels dissolved (not sure if that’s the correct term) or a part of the wine. Tank method the bubbles feel superficial to me and wasn’t sure if the Coravin sparkling was able to maintain the fine bubble structure of Champagne intact or introduce a seltzer quality.

[Russell_Faulkner]

Selosse VO, 5/5/22 disgorgement. Under 1g/L dosage. Pours mid gold, nose of rich pear, yellow fruits, oak not showy. Weighty, very fruity, yeasty long finish. A great example. Much more consistency these days.

[Phil_T_r_o_t_t_e_r]

Péhu Simonet Face Nord Rosé
Disclaimer: We sell this wine.

Balanced, fresh and precise. Strawberry, cherry, minerals and freshness. Enjoyable.

[Kris_Patten]

About 1/10 as outrageous as the asking price for Weller 12. Good job putting 2 overvalued products in one pic!

[scottkieser]

I bought the Weller at retail pricing, which is around $50. Thankfully, I got the Dosnon at half price too.

[David_H_i_l_l_e_y]

@B_Davies

I’ve read up on others having somewhat good experiences with it. A local restauranter here tested it on a double mag and dumped so much gas into it… held it for 3 weeks and held up fairly well. The re-carbonation is really interesting. When customers ask about sparkling wine I explain in Champagne the CO2 really feels dissolved (not sure if that’s the correct term) or a part of the wine. Tank method the bubbles feel superficial to me and wasn’t sure if the Coravin sparkling was able to maintain the fine bubble structure of Champagne intact or introduce a seltzer quality.

As I understand it (not a chemical engineer here!), basically what the Coravin sparkling does is displace the air in the headspace of the bottle with pressurized CO2. The pressure exerted prevents existing CO2 from the liquid from escaping further and the fact that it displaced air prevents oxidation. But since there is a pressure differential between the newly injected CO2 and the liquid, some new CO2 will go into solution in the liquid but this happens pretty slowly because the bottle is generally still and the contact area between the liquid and the gas is just the top surface. Sodastream agitates the liquid violently creating a lot of surface area and interactions to add new gas to the liquid much faster, etc.

So mostly with Coravin you are maintaining existing carbonation (the existing bubble structure) to the extent possible and displacing oxygen rather than re-carbonating something that has gone flat. But certainly some transfer will happen over time, since you can’t just keep the existing liquid in complete stasis.

[B_Davies]

so what you’re saying is we should use soda streams to get fizzy oxidized wines

[M.Kaplan]

You may get more effervescence if you use glasses with nucleation points, which are absent from the glasses in your post.

[wspohn]

Had my last bottle of 1990 Piper Heidsieck Rare recently - love it but probably won’t replace it Was still in good shape.

[Dinesh_Goyal]

Haven’t had Miniere’s champagnes before.

When I told Daniel @ Sommcellars in UWS that I like Selosse style, he suggested I try this out. A fan.

Having with Urbani caviar. While no where close to Charlie’s caviar, I picked it up during their sale. So destroying a 100 gm can solo, which u wouldn’t otherwise

[Frank_Murray_III]

I really like Frederic Miniere’s wines. He makes a Chard called Absolu and a blend called Symbiose, with the 2012 of that really showing excellent last year. I ended up sourcing 3 of those the next day. Influence as you have here is very good, too.

[Scott_K1]

[Kevin_Diffley]

Ok so I sent out a bat signal? (A text) Thursday to a friend asking if they wanted to meet for some bubbles. Little did I know it would turn into a bunch of sparkling wine 4 being champagne. It started tame with some Andre Clouet Grande Reserve. I’ve really been liking this recent disgorgement for its freshness and acid while still having some Bouzy PN/ oxidative characteristics.

Then it was a Piuze side project with Val de Mer cremant de Bourgogne brut nature. Meh, especially when next to champagne.

Then we needed to eat, we wanted more bubbles so we went to our local champagne watering hole. A hidden gem — pizza joint with a champagne list that will rival many.

Started with Suenen Oiry BdB - 2017 base 2g/l
Really lovely BdB honestly had this while standing waiting for pizza with bottle in hand, glass in the other.

Then we opened A. Bergere Solera 2019 base I believe - my favorite of the bunch. The solera style gave it depth and complexity that the others didn’t quite have.

And then as we were getting ready to leave we were stopped by the owner. He realized he had a Pierre Gerbais “on deck” (hiding) behind a Pierre Peters. And he opened that up. And that was another that punches well above its price.

Fun night and lots of good bubbles.

[Scott_Watkins]

That is one content dog! How was the wine?