Champagne's MystiqueBy Lyn FarmerSparkling, brilliant, subtle, alluring, intense, exciting, deep - this could be a catalog of romance, or tasting notes for a great Champagne, but it actually describes an image that, for me, is the epitome of all that Champagne embodies. You don't need to know the model's identity to feel the illustration's impact. She is an artist's vision, a lithe woman with blond hair and a long, black dress elegantly, even sinuously, positioned behind a Champagne flute, bubbles streaming past her décolletage. Symbolically rich, the image carries a simple message: "L'Instant Taittinger" (The Taittinger Moment). In 1988, the now-famous rendering by Patrick Harlet was published as an advertisement in magazines around the world and with it Claude Taittinger created an iconic symbol, not only for his brand, but for Champagne in general. >
Long before the memorable image was published, the entrepreneurial makers of Champagne understood that the eye was just as important as the palate and nose. "Mystique and marketing are tied together," acknowledges Fabrice Rosset, CEO of Champagne Deutz. "Our grandfathers had images of bottles and posters to convey a spirit they found in the wine." By the early 20th century, important poster artists such as Leonetto Capiello were splashing bright colors everywhere, celebrating the joie de vive imparted by Champagne, and implying other benefits as well.
For example, in the 1890s, Champagne de la Jarretièrre promised its wine would "conquer hearts," while other brands of the era, such as Deutz & Gelderman (as it was then known), Pommery and Moët & Chandon, were more subtle in their implication that drinking Champagne held the keys to sophistication and romance.
Even now, legends and icons spring from clever marketing, a fact that was underscored during an October trip to Champagne. Jacques Peters is the amiable chef de caves at Veuve Clicquot. I've just arrived at the house for a tasting, and we head down the broad, candlelit stairs that lead to the miles of Clicquot's underground limestone tunnels where Peters's wines patiently age in a constant environment. In the flickering orange light of the tapers, he notes that, "Clicquot is an example of a house whose non-vintage wine is so recognizable that, in essence, it is an emblem for the house in the marketplace." So much so that the firm added a square of that recognizable yellow-orange to its vintage cuvée a decade ago to help customers make the association; even the prestige cuvée, La Grande Dame, carries the yellow-orange square.
Although marketing strategies evolve continuously, "We all feel a sense of tradition," says Mumm's winemaker Dominique Demarville who, like Peters, was born in the Champagne region. "We grow up with the stories - they are very real."
"The Champagne firms are companies," says Olivier Krug, "but we still call them houses because for many of us, this remains a family business, no matter who owns the company on paper." Krug is the sixth generation of his family associated with the wine that bears his name, and while the company is now owned by luxury goods company Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH), he says, "To my mind, we're still a family firm with our family traditions intact."
Tradition is a word one encounters every day in Champagne, sometimes connected with the stories of Champagne's many personalities and sometimes with the way the wines are made. "It's important to draw a distinction between mystique as folklore and mystique as tradition," Deutz's Rosset says. "For the consumer, Champagne's mystique is in stories, but it's a little different for us. The art of making Champagne is like a Byzantine fresco, where it takes many small parts to make the grand picture: The picture is, indeed, grand, but we have to look out for the small pieces to make it great."
Beyond these cultivated images and house traditions, there are the more intangible, even elusive aspects whose sum total creates one of the world's most imitated wines. For Krug, the big picture is magical. "I like it that Champagne has some mystery to it. I don't think it's important to be able to tell 1988 from the 1989 in a blind tasting, or for someone to know all the nuances of how we make the wine. How we do it is less important than what we end up with. Does anyone ever ask the percentage of violins in a Mozart concerto?"
That is a sentiment shared by Pierre Larmandier, a récolltant-manipulant, a grower who makes wine from his own property in Vertus, a village in the chardonnay-oriented Côte des Blancs. He believes the mystique of Champagne helps keep the consumer focused on what is important. "The consumer should not have to think about the technique, just the wine. When you open the bottle you should be happy to finish the bottle - I want to make a wine that invites the consumer to savor it."
The invitation can be simple or richly embellished with history. With the harvest complete and a chill in the air, I join Vincent Chaperon, a member of the Dom Pérignon winemaking team, outside the small abbey at Hautvillers, a premier cru village. He sweeps his hand across the landscape taking in the view of the abbey where Dom Pérignon lived, worked and is buried. The vineyards of Hautvillers lie on the slope below the abbey; the rows seem to stretch all the way to the town of Épernay and, in the distance, one can make out the rolling slope of the Côte des Blancs. "How can you not be inspired by this scene?" Chaperon wonders aloud. "It is the ultimate inspiration for a Champagne maker."
Walking through the carefully restored cellar where Dom Pérignon and his fellow monks labored, reading his journal, touching the implements they used to cultivate their vines and make their wines, and taking stock of the actual bottles they handled, gives one a deep sense of the continuity of history here and the role played by this humble man who is so identified with the wine we call Champagne.
It was 1668 when Pierre Pérignon took a position at the abbey akin to business manager (the abbot was the actual spiritual leader). One of Dom Pérignon's charges was to manage the vineyards and winery, tasks for which it turned out he had a considerable knack. He didn't "invent" Champagne, but he and his colleague Dom Ruinart, another monk whose name has since been appropriated as a Champagne brand, are believed to be among the first to control the natural phenomenon that makes the bubbles possible.
Because the Champagne region, which lies less than 100 miles east of Paris, is so far north, cold weather comes early. Back then, grapes harvested in September often did not complete their transformation into wine before a temperature drop halted the fermentation. Incorrectly assuming fermentation was finished, the wine was bottled in the winter, but yeast remaining in the liquid revived when temperatures warmed in the spring and quickly consumed whatever sugar remained in the half-fermented juice. The pressure of carbon dioxide, a by-product of the yeast's conversion of sugar into alcohol, usually did one of two things: It popped out the rags or corks that closed the bottle or, if it couldn't do that, it built up to a point where the fragile bottles exploded. Sometimes, however, the bottle was strong enough not to explode and the stoppers were wedged in tightly enough that they could not be dislodged, and in those cases the gas had nowhere to go but to dissolve into the wine.
Significant strides were made at the abbey, but it was a resourceful worker in the cellars of Clicquot who perfected a process called remuage, intended to clear up the wine's nagging cloudiness. By slowly turning the bottle upside down over a period of several weeks, all of the solid matter settles in the bottle neck; it's then quickly frozen and deftly disgorged, leaving behind a clear, effervescent wine.
What happens in the bottle before disgorgement is rather technical, but this is where the real mystery of Champagne lies. "Great Champagne ages, but it ages differently from other wines," Chaperon says. "I think of it as the world of chardonnay and the universe of pinot noir coming together. We want perfect harmony and integration of the two - not too much of the charm of chardonnay or the power of pinot noir. We want something round. It's hard to explain the aging potential of a wine; balance is important, but it's partly magic."
For Mumm's Demarville, that magic is all about the blend. "In blending our non-vintage Grand Cru, I select the wines with a feel for their minerality more than their ability to age. But the ability to age is still there because we know from history and tradition that the potential for aging is greater with grand cru grapes than with premier cru fruit."
"Our challenge is to have people understand Champagne as wine," Deutz's Rosset says. He uses a map of the Champagne region to point out the spots where Deutz either owns or purchases grapes. "The fact is, today a good grower can harvest good grapes in many areas, and a poor grower will produce less-than-great fruit even in a village that is designated grand cru. Selection is important, but I also believe grand cru and premier cru still mean something - it's part of our mystique." Each village produces grapes with unique character; combining those characters in a cuvée is a major part of the winemaker's art.
"Mumm Grand Cru, the firm's latest luxury cuvée, is a non-vintage wine," Demarville notes, "and I'm not looking for long aging. It's a wine to balance the quality of grand cru with a certain freshness of youth. I think it's best at three to four years old. For the qualities that come with long aging, I work mostly with wine from a single vintage year."
Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon, chef de caves at Louis Roederer, observes, "The ability to age is a very important factor in our choices. In fact, we follow very closely the evolution of the wines from harvest to bottling and we eliminate all the wines, even good wines, that age too fast." That is partly a question of style and also of economics. The Roederer house style dictates that wines be aged in the cellar for a longer period of time than those of many other producers. But such a stylistic commitment is more expensive and is reflected in the bottle price. It is one of the joys of Champagne that both approaches can result in great wine. That one Champagne can be so different from another is part of its mystique and allure.
For example, Demarville makes a lovely blanc de blancs from chardonnay grown in the grand cru village of Cramant, and prefers the freshness of the wine with two-and-a-half years of bottle age. Despite the fact that all the grapes are from a single harvest, Mumm de Cramant is sold without a vintage date because the legal minimum aging time for a vintage wine is three years. Lécaillon's blanc de blancs, drawn from Cramant and several other villages in the Côte des Blancs, is also from a single harvest, but is aged for four years before disgorging and another six months afterward on the cork, so it is entitled to bear a vintage date. Both the extra aging and the broader selection of villages give the Roederer blanc de blancs a sense of roundness, while Mumm's possesses a bright vivacity.
In the spectrum of Champagne styles, the two poles are often considered to be freshness or youthfulness and complexity or maturity. But like every other word applied to Champagne, there are nuances to consider. "A wine can be fresh and complex," says Régis Camus, chef de caves at both Piper-Heidsieck and Charles Heidsieck. "I think the Piper style is to have that verve and vivacity, but that does not mean simplicity. There can be many layers of flavor in wines that taste fresh - you just need to choose the right wines to blend." The same winemaker uses different sources and a different image in his mind to create wines for Charles Heidsieck, where there is a greater emphasis on roundness and maturity.
It is ironic that prestige cuvées, usually given more aging than the vintage wine of a house, often find their biggest market in night clubs whose youthful clientele may not yet be able to discern the difference. "That is for show," says Jean-Marie Barillère, the longtime CEO of Mumm and Perrier Jouët who left his post at press time. While he is nonetheless delighted to see a bottle of Perrier Jouët's Fleur de Champagne ornamenting a table in a club, but, he says, "Each of us makes a prestige cuvée mainly for connoisseurs who are looking for a wine that represents the ultimate expression of a house style."
Does that mean that a vintage Champagne released one year is not the best expression of a style and consumers really need to wait another two or three years for the prestige cuvée from the same vintage? "Definitely not," Roederer's Lécaillon insists. "A prestige cuvée and a vintage are very different. Here at Roederer, Cristal is a style in which we seek a blend of freshness, elegance, concentration and silkiness. It has to be precise and pure."
He notes that, "The vintage is completely different: We are looking for power, length, lots of pinot noir flavors and expression of the terroir. We want to capture the expression of the year." In short, they're totally different interpretations - same winemaker, same philosophy, but alternative views of Champagne's possibilities.
It's far easier to analyze wine style than it is to understand the mystery associated with how Champagne ages. With most still wine, there is a slow maturation to a plateau where it can stay for a short time, or a long time, depending on the wine. But, Dom's Chaperon observes, "We don't have the same type of aging as with red wine. We don't have just one optimum point. It is something very special with Champagne, a very different type of evolution."
Dom Pérignon chef de caves Richard Geoffroy, Chaperon and their team tasted back through their library and realized that the best wines actually aged in three stages, or "plentitudes," as Chaperon calls them. "Champagne follows what you would think is normal aging, with a slow maturity to a plateau and this is where most houses release their wines. When that time comes depends on the blend, but there is a window of maturity that closes after a few years. For us, the window is open at about seven years; it is at that point that the wine really shows the Dom Pérignon style." It may show that style, he says, for four or five years, but then the wine starts to close, the balance of fruit and acidity - the generosity of the wine - seems to change and it loses roundness.
"What we found is that instead of going into decline at about ten years, the wine closes down, and if we wait to disgorge it, it then starts to ascend again and gets a new radiance around 15 to 23 years. It's not precise. It depends on the qualities of the original vintage and the blend." After this second period of new dimensions, the wine starts to close again and Chaperon believes that at this point, around 25 years of age, most Champagnes begin their decline.
For a select few wines such as Dom, there is then what Chaperon calls, "The achievement of a unique radiance. The point at which it is at its optimum expression." This third plentitude of expression is what most excites Chaperon. "For wines we disgorge at 25 to 35 years old, we find the evolution has been very slow. After a point, the wine stops changing, but it has developed unusual characteristics. I think when it is disgorged, the wine discovers oxygen it never had before and blossoms in a new way."
Champagnes disgorged in these second and third periods increasingly show toffee, caramel and coffee notes, and the bubbles are very small. The pressure is a little reduced over time so the wine feels very creamy. "It is a haunting taste and it also shows the uniqueness of Dom Pérignon; we thought it would be interesting for people to try." Chaperon believes the three stages of development "are something unique to Dom Pérignon - I think most Champagnes have only two plateaus and Dom Pérignon has three," though several competing winemakers might disagree.
Didier Depond is the chairman of Salon, a house famous for producing a small quantity of wine, always blanc de blancs, and only in a few select years - "just 37 out of the last 100 years," he notes. Salon is known for its steeliness when young and its great capacity for age. "When Salon is released, it is an adolescent," Depond says. "It will take ten years for it to become adult. Then it will continue to slowly improve and develop more complexity and intensity. At 25 to 30 [years] from release, it will enter its mature years and become deeper and more mellow. Many bottles of Salon are still full of life at the age when they have become seniors!"
Clicquot's Peters adds: "We are constantly surprised by how Champagne develops. It is part of the mystique that surprises us as much as it surprises consumers. It used to be thought that a wine had to stay on its lees at the winery in order to age, and that it began a slow decline once it was disgorged and released. But we have discovered that it does not age less well on the cork, it just ages differently. We've done many comparison tastings and have decided that most consumers, and most of us here, too, actually prefer the wine aged on the cork."
Etienne Bizot of Bollinger leans more toward the Dom Pérignon perspective: "We like the complexity of aging on the lees. Our wines spend more time on the lees than at most other houses because, if the wine is made from very high quality grapes, it acquires more richness and complexity on the lees than on cork." In the civilized realm of Champagne, this is as close to a major disagreement between houses as one will find, at least out in the open.
Bollinger is particularly identified with lees aging, and pointedly releases two vintage wines: One is Grand Année, aged a minimum of five years on its lees and often longer (the 1997 vintage was just released); the other is called R.D. (for recently disgorged). The R.D., which has something akin to a cult following, is aged at least eight years on the lees and often longer, depending on market pressure and individual vintage.
Some winemakers privately assert that the R.D. concept is mainly clever marketing, but no one disputes the quality of Bollinger's wines or the commercial appeal of older Champagne. Krug is perhaps most notable for releasing older wines: The current vintage from the house is the phenomenal 1990, a wine released only last year, even as many prestige cuvées were already into the 1996 vintage. Krug notes, "It's 15 years old and tastes so fresh, but I think the Krug 1979 tastes just as fresh, maybe more so. How the wines age is part of our tradition, so we hold back a portion of every vintage to release after an additional period of time." Marketed as The Krug Collection, these library wines are scarce and eagerly sought by collectors.
Capitalizing on the concept of three stages of development, Dom Pérignon's Geoffroy created the "Oenothèque Series," which includes wines kept on the lees for extended periods and, instead of releasing just one library wine, offers a wine at each of the three stages of development. The newest addition to the series is the 1990, but the 1976 and 1966 are also still available.
In fact, many houses release wines from their libraries on occasion, though small quantities keep them from marketing the wines nearly as widely as Champagne lovers might like. Charles Heidsieck no longer makes a prestige cuvée called Champagne Charlie, but the last vintage it made, the 1985, is still available commercially.
Tasting the 1985 Champagne Charlie with Régis Camus, I couldn't help but think about the winemaker who made it, Camus's predecessor Daniel Thibault, who died in 2002. I first met him in 1998, shortly after he was named Winemaker of the Year for the second time by the International Wine Challenge, a London-based event that purports to be the world's largest blind tasting.
Thibault was born in Champagne and always felt a close connection to the land (he was also a grape grower much of his life). He told me that, "In the 1970s and 1980s, we got a lot of new technology and the houses made wines with technology more than memory. Memory is important," he said, not just to recall pleasure, but to recall purpose. Tradition came to mean a great deal to Thibault because, he said, it gave him perspective.
Speaking of perspective, Camus says, "I'm always amazed how Champagne can balance power and delicacy. We chefs de caves each have our own vision of what we want our wine to be, and each of us makes a wine that is different and usually hard to describe." Take Piper-Heidsieck, a wine Camus is returning to the level of quality it had lost when the house was sold several times in the early 1990s. "I remember the style, and want to recall that identity. There was a certain tenderness in the wine that I want to restore," he says. Tenderness is not exactly the sort of term one expects winemakers to use, but Champagne makers can be a little poetic. "The word I like best is 'ethereal,'" says Alain Terrier, cellar master at Laurent-Perrier. "You can't describe Champagne; you have to feel it. And what we want is to leave you with a feeling of pleasure.
When you come down to the last sip in the glass, age, nuance, the technical aspects of getting those flavors and holding them in place, and the great stories all count, but the real mystique of Champagne is found in people - those who grow the grapes, those who make the wine and those with whom a bottle is shared. The best story in all of Champagne is the one each of us writes with every bottle we open. Tasting bar follows >
Bollinger
Bollinger's rich yet elegant style is unmistakable, a product of many traditional aspects that make the house unique. Among these, Bollinger ferments its wine in barrel and, like Krug, allows nature to determine whether or not acid-taming malolactic takes place or not (usually it does in some casks and not in others). Bollinger is still privately held by family members and is scrupulous in its ethics and vision for Champagne, at one point issuing a charter setting out its practices. Contrary to dispelling its mystique, this openness only served to increase the devotion and regard of its many fans. Bollinger was the first house to put a portion of its vintage Champagne (called Grande Année) aside for extra-long aging on its lees. "R.D.," or Recently Disgorged, was introduced by the beloved Lily Bollinger when she released a portion of the 1952 vintage in 1961. Bollinger R.D. is scarce and disgorged to order which means bottles are released with different amounts of time on the lees though the vintage is the same.
1995 R.D. - $200: To the eye, the wine shows its maturity with a medium gold color and a shimmering mousse of pinpoint bubbles. There is assertive red fruit and Christmas spice on the nose, and on the palate crisp acidity with a fine balance of herbal, lemon and red apple flavors. The wine has great structure with a lovely sense of vinosity - this is a wine for matching with food. Score: 95
Charles Heidsieck
Charles-Camille Heidsieck founded his firm in 1851, and in 1852 was one of the first owners of a Champagne house to go the United States in search of new markets. His charm and energy quickly gained him the nickname "Champagne Charlie." The prestige cuvée at Charles Heidsieck these days is the Blanc de Millénaires, an elegant and very long-lived blanc de blancs, but until the 1985 vintage, there was another prestige wine called Champagne Charlie, a blend of 60 percent pinot noir and 40 percent chardonnay. The last stocks of 1985 Champagne Charlie were kept on the lees for 19 years before disgorgement in 2004, and bottles are still available. It is an elegant and relatively affordable introduction to perfectly matured older Champagne.
1985 Champagne Charlie Brut - $120: The color is unusual for a wine 20 years old - medium gold, but still with youthful green highlights and a very fine bead. On the nose, there is surprisingly little of the oxidation associated with older Champagnes; instead, there is a winning freshness with very forward brioche, mineral and lime aromas. It is bracing and fresh in the mouth with a lovely creamy texture. Flavors continue to blossom with acacia, hazelnut and pronounced citrus peel, then a hint of malt creeping in on the very long, satisfying finish. This is an exquisite Champagne that combines the freshness of youth with the roundness of maturity. Score: 96
Champagne Deutz
Deutz is owned by the same company as Louis Roederer, but the house operates autonomously and has its own facilities and winemaker. While it is based in Aÿ, a grand cru village famous for its pinot noir, Deutz is particularly known for its blanc de blancs and makes two versions including a prestige cuvée called Amour de Deutz that was introduced with the 1993 vintage. In Champagne, chardonnay tends to take longer to mature than pinot noir, and both blanc de blancs have great aging potential, but one of the most impressive wines I tasted this year was the traditional prestige cuvée named for the house's founder, Cuvée William Deutz. In a vertical tasting in Aÿ comparing the wine in magnum and standard bottles, vintages back to 1982 were uniformly exceptional and the current vintage of both the blanc and rosé are simply spectacular.
1996 Cuvée William Deutz - $116: Medium gold with miniscule bubbles. The bouquet shows ripe red fruit and hints of nuttiness and caramel. In the mouth, the wine is very creamy with an initial impact of minerals and red fruit saturating the palate. The wine has great power and elegance - it's the epitome of balance. The texture is rich, ripe and nicely balanced by crisp acidity. A superb wine. Score: 98
1996 Cuvée William Deutz Rosé - $N/A: Shimmering, luminescent, stunning rose gold color; the most perfect of rosé colors with pinpoint bubbles to match. The wine is 80 percent chardonnay and 20 percent pinot noir. On the nose, it possesses a restrained balance of red and orange fruit aromas while on the palate, it has great texture with the red fruit gently asserting itself discreetly, but balanced by minerals and a hint of beeswax. The great structure of the 1996 vintage gives the wine a supremely long finish. Score: 97
1985 Cuvée William Deutz - $N/A: Bright and clear medium gold-yellow with a cascade of pinpoint bubbles. Initially, the wine shows full maturity with a hint of mushroom on the nose that blossoms into more of a sous bois, or forest floor, character. There is a bit of coffee emerging, but only as a foundation for lovely, mature red fruit. The wine has terrific structure with the ripe fruit balanced by moderate acidity - there's no sign of the fruit fading, just great power and roundness. This is a Champagne that has it all - the nuance and complexity of maturity - without losing any of its great youthful verve. A stupendous Champagne that is a brilliant example of the fruit and power in the best wines of 1985. Score: 98
Dom Pérignon
Moët & Chandon introduced Dom Pérignon in 1937 as the first prestige cuvée Champagne, but over the years it has taken on such an identity that it is now marketed as a brand completely separate from its parent company - in fact, there's no mention of Dom Pérignon on Moët's Web site (and vice versa). The squat bottle design that copies the bottles used by the monk Dom Pérignon in the 17th century is an icon of its own. No other prestige cuvée has the history or the stocks to stage the sorts of library releases that Dom Pérignon offers in its Oenothèque series, and thus the wine offers an unequaled taste of history and a sensory catalog of the mystique of Champagne and how it ages.
1976 Dom Pérignon Oenothèque (Disgorged 2004) - $N/A: The 1976 is surprisingly light for a wine of this age; medium straw hue and quite brilliant with a very fine bead. On the nose, the first impression is of vibrant citrus, and only with time do the hints of it being nearly 30 years old come to the bouquet - a bit of mocha, a hint of espresso, a stronger impression of toasted brioche. The toast quality is quite evident on the palate, along with a very creamy texture. In the mouth, the wine is like grilled lemon peel, crisp acidity balancing toasted bread flavors with the barest hint of red fruit in the background. The finish is exceptionally long with persistent coffee and caramel notes. Score: 95
1966 Dom Pérignon Oenothèque (Disgorged 2003) - $N/A: The color is very bright, radiant lemon yellow and gold with nearly invisible pinpoint bubbles. On the nose, there is an immediate sensation of freshly toasted bread and grilled herbs, but in time, the aromas change, taking on more caramel and coffee notes. The wine is creamy on entry with golden apple, lemon, toast and brioche flavors, and then the subtle addition of restrained coffee and caramel notes. It opens with time revealing flavors of charred wood, lemon and honey. Strikingly vinous, it's like a mature Burgundy with noticeable minerality on a very long finish. With its continuing progression of flavors and aromas, this is the ultimate wine for contemplation. Score: 96
René Geoffroy
Jean-Baptiste Geoffroy is one of the most consistently impressive of the grower-producers. Based in the Marne Valley village of Cumières, he makes a stunning rosé, but in 2000, his vintage Champagne steals the show with dazzling fruit and exquisite balance.
2000 Brut Premier Cru - $70: Brilliant white gold with straw highlights and an endless supply of pinpoint bubbles. Gamy red fruit explodes on the nose with extremely bright aromas. Bright red fruit explodes in the mouth with the small bubbles providing an exceptionally creamy texture. As the flavors spread out on the palate, hints of cinnamon-tinged red fruit marmalade become evident and are backed up by crisp acidity carrying over to a very long finish. Even at this youthful point of its development, the wine is stunning for its power and balance. Score: 96
Krug
Krug may be owned by the huge LVMH luxury products group that also owns Moët and Veuve Clicquot, but it remains a small house in both production and outlook. Stylistically, it is a big wine, partly from the choice of fruit and partly from the barrel fermentation of all its wine. Krug has a great capacity for aging both before and after disgorgement thanks to one of the quirks of Champagne - wines given a bit of exposure early in their development, as Krug receives during time in barrel, are less susceptible to oxidation in the bottle as they age. Krug vintage ages slowly and is always several years older when finally released than most other luxury cuvées. The current vintage is 1990. About five percent of Krug vintage is held for longer aging on its lees and released later in a series of late-disgorged wines called The Krug Collection, of which the 1981 is one of the most recent.
1990 Brut - $225: The medium gold color shows the wine's age, and the bubbles are quite small and elegant. The spiciness of pinot meunier is evident on the nose - warm spice and stewed orange fruit with bright red fruit emerging with time in the glass. There is considerable richness on the nose, leading to flavors of pepper, mint and briary herbal notes. On the long finish, honey, hazelnut and warm vanilla give the wine added character and richness. Much more a food wine than an apéritif, and the quintessential example of the "Krug Style." Score: 98
1981 Collection Brut - $640: Bright, deep lemon-yellow with gold overtones. Briny, syrupy nose with lemon and forest floor aromas of mocha and mushroom. In the mouth, the texture is creamy, but the wine is very lively thanks to crisp, even overly tart, acidity that takes time in the glass to tame. The wine has great depth of flavor with hints of citrus marmalade, coffee and red fruit initially; an appealing mineral quality emerges on the long finish. The powerful acidity demonstrates this wine still has plenty of life remaining. Score: 95
Larmandier-Bernier
Pierre Larmandier is a grower-producer living in Vertus toward the southern part of the Côte des Blancs. He makes terroir-driven blanc de blancs Champagnes from several areas, but the greatest example to my mind is his stunning wine made from old vines from the grand cru village of Cramant. It has a refreshing appeal when young, but shows ever more personality as it ages. Larmandier's vintage is also a blanc de blancs, but with grapes drawn from Cramant and two other villages.
2000 Vielles Vignes de Cramant - $59: Pale straw hue with a fine bead. Quite aromatic for a young Champagne with an appealing sauvage gaminess to the aromas - toasty and malty and already with an engaging chalky minerality providing stimulating freshness. In the mouth, the fine bubbles give the wine a lovely creaminess that blossoms with notes of white flowers and hazelnut as well as that appealingly flinty, chalky mineral quality. The wine is very concentrated with some beeswax and lime flower emerging on the very long finish. Still wonderfully youthful, this wine has years of pleasure yet to give - a highly personal vision of what a blanc de blancs can be. Score: 96
1996 Blanc de Blancs Vintage (from magnum) - $N/A: Pale straw color with very small bubbles. A very precise, mineral-scented nose of lime and orange flowers. The aromas are delicate, but still convey a sense of power. Very steely in the mouth - a nervy wine with lots of vivacity. Bright citrus acidity and concentrated flavors with a long finish. Because both the vintage and this wine were tasted from magnum, they are even more closed than the currently available 1998 vintage, but hold a great deal of promise for the future. Score: 95
Laurent-Perrier
Laurent-Perrier is by far the largest family-controlled house in Champagne and chairman Bernard de Nonancourt says, "our style is to make wine for pleasure." They are, indeed, pleasurable, uniformly elegant and refined. Grand Siècle, the prestige wine, is unusual for a luxury cuvée in that it is a blend of three vintages with the youngest usually at least seven years old. Laurent-Perrier also makes two rosé wines, including a non-vintage blend that stresses freshness and crisp fruitiness and is the bestselling rosé Champagne. The other rosé, Cuvée Alexandra, though also called Grand Siècle, is a vintage-dated wine and offers not only bright red fruit flavors, but a surprising capacity for aging:
1990 Cuvée Alexandra Rosé (tasted in 750 and magnum) - $ N/A: In the glass, the copper-rose color is stunning with great vivacity and effervescence. On the nose, there is a lovely balance of red fruit, orange peel and forest floor aromas. The flavors are vibrant, with crisp orange peel and raspberry notes supported by firm acidity and just a hint of citrus revealed on the long finish. A beautiful wine with food. Score: 95
Louis Roederer
Louis Roederer is not only one of the greatest Champagne houses, it is also one of the most successful independent firms in the region, owned by the same family since it was founded in 1776. Today the house is led by a direct descendant of Louis Roederer, Jean-Claude Rouzaud, one of the few heads of a major Champagne house who also trained as a winemaker. In one of many stories forming the Champagne mystique, in 1876 Louis Roederer II created a special cuvée, Cristal, in a clear bottle for Tsar Alexander II. The bottle is also unusual in not having a "punt" or dimple in the bottom. There is much more to Louis Roederer than the famous Cristal prestige cuvée, however. While Cristal carries the greatest mystique and ages particularly well, it is a pity that Roederer's vintage, blanc de blancs and rosé bottlings, all exceptional wines, are so little known in the U.S. With typical understatement, the house says Roederer Vintage "tolerates aging" well.
1996 Brut - $N/A: This wine was lovely when it was released two years ago and has gotten even better with time in the bottle. The sometimes hard acidity of 1996 has tamed and the fruit flavors have emerged with satisfying roundness. Today the wine is medium straw-gold in color with small bubbles and very good activity. Light aromas of white pepper, vanilla and citrus are supported by notes of orange honey. In the mouth, the wine offers flavors of vanilla, toast, orange peel and lime. It is very well balanced, refreshing, but with a very pleasing richness - a lovely wine. Score: 94
Mumm
When Mumm hired Dominique Demarville in 1994, he was the youngest person ever to hold the position of chef de caves at a major Champagne house. He was charged with restoring the reputation and quality of Mumm, which everyone agreed had slid precipitously by the early 1990s. In a decade he has made huge strides toward achieving that goal with Mumm de Cramant being a particularly good indicator of his success. It is only made with fruit from the grand cru chardonnay village of Cramant and, though it does not usually meet the three-year minimum of lees aging to be labeled a vintage wine, it is invariably from a single year. While made to be consumed young, it shows remarkable finesse with additional bottle age:
Mumm de Cramant (all from 1995, disgorged in 1998) - $N/A: This wine was tasted from a magnum in 2004 with six years of aging on the cork. It still showed attractive freshness in its white gold color with green highlights, and on the citrus and mineral scented bouquet. But in the mouth, both the wine's age and pedigree showed in an appealing roundness and maturing flavors of lemon drop, honey and hazelnut. The wine is bottled at lower pressure than most Champagnes, so it has a particular velvety texture in the mouth. The long finish carried the fruit and maintained its zest with crisp acidity and flinty minerality. Score: 94
Pol Roger
Pol Roger is notable for having one of the coldest limestone caves for aging wines in the region. At the colder temperature the wines take longer to develop, and that extra aging is one factor contributing to the complexity and finesse of the wines. The company's prestige Cuvée Winston Churchill is lovely, but year after year the house impresses me most with its exceptional (and more affordable) "regular" vintage wines, including the Blanc de Chardonnay and a wonderful rosé:
1998 Brut Rosé - $88: Shimmering rose color. Clean aromas of herbs and spice with a foundation of minerals and white peach. Vanilla, red fruit and a shy, but lovely spice note in the mouth. There's a haunting ripe raspberry quality in the wine that blossoms on the finish. As one so often finds with Pol Roger, this wine has a great balance of power and beguiling elegance. Score: 95
1995 Cuvée Winston Churchill - $196: Pale gold with very small bubbles and a beautiful mousse. The wine has a lovely bouquet of brioche and puff pastry with hints of red fruit, citrus and hazelnut. In the mouth, the wine is creamy with an appealing, beguiling dryness on entry and lots of chalky minerals. It's a very clean, medium-bodied wine just beginning to show some mature flavors of minerals and lemon peel. There's a lot of pinot punch giving it zesty power with brioche, sweet malt and caramel on a very long close. Score: 98
Taittinger
Taittinger is a family-controlled firm that is as identified with Champagne's mystique as a house can be: They own the house that served as residence of the Counts of Champagne. Claude Taittinger, vice president and directeur-général of the house, named the company's prestige cuvée, called Comtes de Champagne, after the influential Count Thibaud IV, who is reputed to have brought chardonnay to Champagne from Cyprus. Taittinger is a house identified with chardonnay, and Comtes de Champagne is always a blanc de blancs. The 1995 is a superb example of the prestige cuvée, but the newly released Comtes de Champagne Rosé provided one of the most pleasant surprises of the year:
1999 Comtes de Champagne Rosé - $200: Bright copper with a jewel-like brilliance. Vanilla crème brûlée on the nose with red fruit and orange stone fruit. Cider, red apple peel and sweet citrus in the mouth with a nice malty note in the back. Extremely long finish with hints of red fruit and toasted brioche. Absolutely top flight with enough tannin structure to give it a long life, though it's hard to resist now. Score: 96
Veuve Clicquot
Madame Clicquot is one of the great and best known stories of Champagne. She was a pioneer not only in marketing the wine, but creating it as we know it today: a clear and brilliant sparkling wine of consistent quality. Emblematic of the great tradition of the house, when the company developed its prestige cuvée they chose the name "La Grande Dame" in homage to Madame Clicquot, and the wine is made solely from grapes from eight grand cru vineyards purchased by Madame Clicquot herself. Cellar master Jacques Peters, who was born in the Côte des Blancs, has been with Clicquot since 1979 and has presided over some exceptional vintages. I think the 1996 La Grande Dame is the greatest yet produced, but in one vertical tasting after another, sampling Clicquot in both magnum and 750, the longevity and quality of the vintage cuvées are undeniable.
1949 Dry - $N/A: For any white wine to age more than 55 years is a considerable feat, but this example shows some interesting things about Champagne. Disgorged about 1955 and still with its original capsule and cork, the bottle was purchased by Clicquot in Britain in immaculate condition. Pressure of the gas in the bottle helped maintain both moisture and a good seal for the cork, and the sugar and acidity of the wine kept it vibrant though clearly it had aged. The pressure has reduced over the years from six atmospheres to perhaps three or four, but the wine was still wonderfully lively. The color was burnished bronze and nearly all the sweetness has disappeared, leaving behind a wine that has exceptional balance between the acidity and concentrated flavors reminiscent of red fruit confiture and Christmas spices with just a hint of coffee - an amazing drink. Score: This venerable wine stands outside the purview of mortal rating systems, and will remain so.
Senior Editor Lyn Farmer received the 2003 James Beard Journalism Award for magazine writing and was also nominated in 2004.
