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Merchant January sales have attractive deals

Fed up with all those pseudo half price champagne offers in the supermarkets? For the most part the supermarket exclusives sold at the year end at 50% or less than their full prices are alleged to be, aren’t worth buying. You’d be far better off spending £10-£15 on a good sparkling wine, something like Graham Beck’s Chardonnay/Pinot Noir blend from the Western Cape that’s 25% off at Waitrose until 21 January making it just £10.49 a bottle.

But if want to buy champagne now there are some really attractive wines from high quality small producers (growers, co-ops and small houses) selling with a genuine discount at merchants like Berry Brothers and Jeroboams in their January sales. Berrys have Le Mesnil Blanc de Blancs, one of my favourite wines from 2013, down at £22.50 a bottle and wines from some of the best growers in Champagne including J.L. Vergnon, René Geoffroy and Laherte Frères all at £22 (if you buy a case). Jeroboams is selling Georges Vesselle Brut for slightly less. These are all champagnes that make some of the cuvées from the big houses priced at over £30 look ordinary. The grocers’ ‘half price’ offerings are a very poor relation.

Magnums best for the New Year parties

It may not be true of all wine, but in the case of champagne, the size of the bottle has a perceptible effect on the taste. While the vast majority of champagne is sold in 75cl bottles, if you put the same wine in a magnum it matures more slowly, just as it develops rather faster in a half bottle (37.5cl). While champagne is also sold in larger sizes from Jeroboam (3 litres) up to Melchizedek (30 litres) the wine in these formats is usually made in smaller bottles and decanted into them in a process known as transvasage, losing freshness and fizz in the process*.

Experience suggests the magnum is also the ideal size for producing champagne with the wines in this format invariably having the edge over their identical counterparts in bottle, though ideally they should be aged longer. In a recent taste test we tried Sainsbury’s Blanc de Noirs in bottle and magnum side by side to see if we could see much discernible difference and the wine in magnum was generally preferred. It was not noticeably fresher (as is often the case) it simply had more depth of flavour and a richer more satisfying mid palate, suggesting it may have been aged longer. A hint more colour and a cork which appeared to indicate it was disgorged some time earlier than the comparable bottle backed up that idea.

Although annoyingly the magnum is no longer on a 25% off promotion (and the bottle size is, see latest offers) as it was when recommended here earlier in the month, at around £40 it still represents good value and if you are entertaining guests this evening you also have the added theatre a magnum brings to any occasion.
*There are some exceptions to this like Michel Drappier who disgorges in every bottle size from halves up to the Melchizedek and makes excellent wines.

Grocers final cuts for New Year celebrations

In the final round of cuts before the year end Sainsbury’s seems determined to match or better other supermarkets offers on the big volume lines. Currently, like rival Tesco, it has a very large range of deals with the best prices on Lanson Black Label, Piper-Heidsieck and Heidsieck-Monopole.

Outside the supermarket arena one of the best deals in terms of quality to price ratio is on Joseph Perrier at Jeroboams where until 2 January you pay £131.70 for a case of six, that’s £21.95 a bottle, for this beautifully made, mellow, characterful fizz. Majestic has added three single bottle price deals on Pol Roger (£30), Perrier-Jouët and Laurent-Perrier (both £25) especially for New Year celebrations. For details of all the current deals see latest champagne offers page

Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger looks at current issues in Champagne

Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger doesn’t come to the UK market very often but when he does it usually makes for interesting copy. The last time I saw him for any length of time was at the Vintners’ Hall fascinating vertical tasting of Comtes de Champagne held nearly two years ago in December 2011. He was on good form again last month and gave a very amusing speech to guests at the Café Royal reception.

ChampagneGuru with Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger at the Café Royal reception

Earlier in the day when we talked about the market one of the most interesting things he said was that for the first time in many years Taittinger was able to buy all the grapes it wanted from the 2013 harvest. Perhaps this is the first sign that grape prices might stop rising each year, a regular increase that has effectively forced the major players to raise their prices to retailers annually for more than a decade. Pierre-Emmanuel is not alone in wanting to keep champagne affordable.

Olivier Krug explains how the Krug ID code works

Olivier Krug explains how the Krug ID code works on a bottle of Grand Cuvee which we taste together at Browns Hotel in London’s Abermarle Street. The code on this particular bottle was: 411046. From this we learn that it’s a multi vintage blend of several different years, the oldest from 1990 the youngest from 2005.

Stakes are raised as discounting nears fever pitch

While Sainsbury’s 25% reduction on all wines including champagne (when six or more bottles are purchased) ended last night, more great deals are emerging with Tesco continuing to offer some of its best on its by-the-case website. Some offers come and go very quickly. Morrisons major cut in the price of Laurent-Perrier Rosé Brut NV, down £25 from £57.99 to £32.99 a bottle only lasted a day on their website, but should still be available in some stores, though it is not yet clear how much stock they have. The £10 a bottle deals continue though these are not on very exciting wines. The only thing we haven’t really seen is major discounts on the biggest brands of non-vintage Brut, though Moet is down at £25 a single bottle in ASDA and Lanson Rosé is down to £18.99, again at Morrisons (website and in store). See the latest champagne offers page for more deals.

Fizz price war takes off

As we near the end of November, so the promotional activity at the supermarkets hots up with lots of copycat deals as the grocers try to match anything their competitors put out. Heidsieck Monopole Blue Top, a basic level non-vintage brut, is being pushed by Sainsbury’s, Tesco and ASDA who all have it priced around the £15 mark. Sainsbury’s have gone one step further cutting the single bottle price to £12.49 a bottle, as a reader near Oxford spotted. Perhaps to better the Co-op’s deal on Piper Heidsieck, they have also extended their offer on this brand, and cut the price further to £18 a bottle.

In the latest competitive move ASDA has upped the anti by bettering Morrisons offers on Lanson Black Label and Rosé (by 99p) and cutting the price of its own label exclusive Pierre Darcys Brut NV to just £10 a bottle. Aldi has reduced the price of its Veuve Monsigny exclusive label to £9.99 into the New Year.

Further discounts are likely to emerge shortly with another 25% off the whole range due to start imminently. See latest offers

Leclerc & Carrefour slug it out in French champagne price war

A price war between supermarkets using champagne as their weapon of choice has broken out the other side of The Channel, shadowing developments in the UK where prices have fallen steadily since mid-October. Two of the major French supermarket groups, Leclerc and Carrefour have both been running promotions on champagne which have seen the price of Paul Francois Vranken’s Premier Cru fall to just €7.78 a bottle in Carrefour earlier this week. The Leclerc group has retaliated with a €8.45 price on GH Martel which runs from 6 to 16^th November.

“With discounts as large as this the consumer might think that something is wrong with the wine and I am afraid of this,” commented Michel Letter head of GH Mumm and Perrier-Jouët. “The price of the Vranken champagne [in Carrefour] is below cost, it’s not his [Vranken’s] fault but the supermarket which has set the price, but the consumer doesn’t know that.”

In France retailers are not allowed to sell products like champagne at under cost but just as UK supermarkets get round the restrictions on advertising ‘half-price deals’ which are not really genuine (they have to list the product in question for 28 days at the so-called full retail price prior to offering it at ‘half-price’) the French grocers get round restrictions by giving customers large discounts on their loyalty cards. The GH Martel discount comes via a 50% reduction on the Leclerc loyalty card, while in the Vranken Premier Cru deal where the price has dropped from €25.95 a bottle, Carrefour is giving its loyalty card holders a massive 70%, or €18.17 a bottle discount.

“The price is nearly cheaper than Prosecco,” added Letter. “When they see this, consumers may think, ‘is it really Champagne’? Something must be wrong with it at this price. It is not the producer but the supermarkets doing it, trying to attract customers. They don’t care about the effect, but in the long term Champagne’s image will be damaged,” he says.

Using champagne to drive footfall in retailers is not just a European phenomenon, Letter notes. Just back from the Melbourne Cup in Australia which GH Mumm sponsors he says he saw “Moët selling for A$24.7 [€17.7] at Dan Murphy’s liquor store, that’s below cost”.

“You can have champagne selling at two different prices with one that is twice as expensive, giving the explanation that the grapes are sourced from grands crus vineyards or the wine is aged longer, but three times higher starts to be too big a difference. There is a danger that consumers won’t understand the reason for the difference.”

“The objective of such promotional offers are, from the retailer’s perspective, to drive an increased traffic to their stores thanks to a special price offer on an iconic product. However, such prices disturb the consumer’s set of references, and are not good for the image of Champagne,” says Thibaut Le Mailloux, communications director at the CIVC, Champagne’s governing body.

Prices of champagne in French supermarkets have been gradually falling over the past few weeks with Georges Cartier offered for €9.35 a bottle at the end of October; and Charles Lafitte (a brand owned by Vranken) priced at €12.50 in a BOGOF deal a week earlier at Carrefour. While Heidsieck & Co Monopole (another brand that’s owned by Vranken and sold in UK supermarkets) was priced at €13,50 a bottle in Carrefour at the start of October.

The press centre at Roger Brun in Aÿ

On Wednesday morning (9 October) I went to see Philippe Brun who runs the press at his family’s business (Roger Brun) in Aÿ. As well as processing his own grapes for a fine range of Pinot Noir based champagnes under the Roger Brun label, Philippe runs a service for several top négociants, some of whom he also supplies with grapes, plus numerous small growers. It is his comments you can hear on the video. Also note that for his own grapes he uses not the large 40 kilos baskets but smaller 20 kilo versions because he wants to limit the likelihood of grapes being damaged and the risk they may start to ferment before they are tipped into the press. He also has a pneumatic press on the same site, but we look at how the 4,000 kilo Coquard press is run and also show the second pressing in the film.

Second Video:

Pressing at Perrier Jouët in Cramant

You see and hear lots of interesting things when you visit Champagne while the harvest is actually going on. On my three day trip there last week I saw several different press houses in action and have made a couple of short videos featuring the Coquard basket press at two different wineries. The first involves the Perrier-Jouët operation in the village of Cramant in the Côte des Blancs. It’s is remarkable just how quickly the presses are loaded by hand. The baskets of Chardonnay you see being emptied at speed each weigh around 40 kilos and therefore you need 100 to get the 4,000 kilos that makes up one pressing (known as a Marc).

First Video:

Thanks to Finn Fallowfield for editing.