Author: admin

Great vintage champagne predicted from 2012 harvest

After a disastrous growing season with frost, poor flowering, hail and disease all hitting yields, good, dry and warm weather in the run-up to picking has produced a small but potentially great harvest. “The quality is outstanding,” says Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon chef de cave at Louis Roederer. “It is a great vintage. Probably better than 1996 and close to 1990 on average. But in some special location it could well better than that, closer to a 1947? Full ripeness of Pinot Noir which is typical of a continental summer and a perfect final ripeness of Chardonnay and Meunier. Acidity is balanced and pH quite low for such a level of sugar.”

“All will be clearer in a few weeks when the still wines are tasted, but already, what we are seeing now is somewhere between 2002 and 1959, two of Champagne’s greatest vintages, if ever there were any,” says Charles Philipponnat of the eponymous house. “For us [it is], somewhere between 1959, 1990 and 2002. Yields were only 6 to 7000 kilos/hectare, but quality was very satisfactory, especially the Pinot Noir, whose exceptional sugar content — 11.5° to more than 12° — was higher than in 1976, 2000 or 2003, and was combined with an excellent acidity, that was even better than in 1996.”

“Everything is here, quality-wise, to craft some top vintage champagne. Considering just numbers, 2012 looks like a cross between 2002, 1990 and 1952 all excellent years,” says Frédéric Panaiotis, chef de cave at Ruinart. “All grapes came in super- healthy, we’ve recorded extremely high levels of glycerol and gluconic acid.”

“The overall quality of the grapes was very high,” says Hervé Deschamps, chef de cave at Perrier-Jouët. It was “a very good healthy harvest with no botrytis and a very good ripeness for all grapes varieties.” “Considering the health of the grapes, the level of maturity and the balance with acidity I am very confident in the vintage potential of this harvest,” says Benoît Gouez, chef de cave at Moët & Chandon.

“It looks like 1996, but less homogeneous,” says Michel Drappier of the eponymous house in the Côte des Bar. “It was a year of ‘extremes’, minus 20°c in February, a very warm and dry end of winter, the rainiest spring for years, the most devastating hail storm of the past 200 years, a heat wave in August with plus 38°c ‘cooking’ some berries and this resulted in the smallest crop for Drappier since 1957, with a yield of only 4,300Kg/ha.”

Yields were considerably down elsewhere as well. “With most of our old vineyards being traditionally ploughed, little usage of chemicals and some of our vineyards farmed organically and bio-dynamically, we have been very exposed to the bad weather conditions in 2012,” says Lécaillon, “especially in the early ripening grands crus.  Our final yield in our vineyard was 7,500 kg/ha. Well below the appellation.” At Philipponnat yields “were only 6 to 7,000 kgs/ha” while at Moët in the Appellation’s largest estate “The average yield is 8.5 tons/ha,” says Gouez. Of those we have spoken to so far since the harvest ended only Perrier-Jouet has reached the maximum yield set by the CIVC. “In our vineyards we have by average 11,000kg/ha and near 200kg/ha for the Réserve individuelle,” says Deschamps.

 

Paillard accuses Bollinger of copying his ‘unique’ bottle

Bruno Paillard has accused Bollinger of copying the shape of his ‘unique’ bottle in a press release sent to UK journalists and magazines this afternoon (3rd August). At the start of the release entitled: “When Bollinger copies Bruno Paillard” it says: ‘Even when introduced as an innovation, an irresistible urge to make it rhyme with imitation takes us when we discover the new Bollinger bottle…

And between a picture of the two bottles it continues: ‘See for yourself to which extent it appropriates the exclusive bottle designed in 1984 by Bruno Paillard for the wines bearing his name.’

There is then a quite lengthy quote as follows from Paillard detailing his reaction. “I am deeply shocked that a house – who by the way advertises an ‘ethic’ charter and whose direction I regularly meet every month at the Union des Maisons de Champagne board never has the courtesy to discuss this subject – allow themselves to copy an existing model. At this stage we only have superimposed pictures of their bottle on ours and recorded they were rigorously identical. We will of course ask an expertise on their bottle, and if it turns out they are the exact same model, we will have to start a judicial process, our bottle being registered in many countries.

“I designed this bottle almost 30 years ago, not only to distinguish our House, but also to increase the exchange surface between the wine and the lees, increasing this way the complexity of our wines. This antique shape may remind of a small magnum, but it is not its goal.”

Posing the question to himself as to whether imitation is the sincerest form of flattery Paillard ends by saying: “Maybe, but in such case one can also consider it a servile copy. Which does not make me feel flattered but attacked to tell the truth.”

Bollinger’s offices in Aÿ are currently closed for a pre-harvest break but a spokesman issued the following statement: “We do not wish to comment directly on claims made last week regarding the redesigned shape of our bottle. However, as explained at the initial launch in May, we would like to underline the fact that this redesign drew inspiration from the collection of bottles in our cellars which date back to the mid-19th century.”

 

Hailstorm decimates part of Côte des Bar vineyard

A powerful hailstorm hit the southern Côte des Bar region of Champagne last week (7 June) destroying this year’s grape crop and causing such severe damage to the vines it is estimated that a third of next year’s harvest will also be lost. The hail was concentrated in a band just to the south of Bar-sur-Aube and particularly hit the villages of Urville and neighbouring crus Bergères, Meurville, Baroville and Fontaine, an area comprising some 719 hectares of vineyard. The vast majority of these vineyards are planted with Pinot Noir (586 hectares) but there were also eight hectares of rare varieties like Arbanne and Petit Meslier affected.

In Urville, some 100 hectares of vineyard out of the 189 in the village were completely destroyed and will produce no grapes this year while there was around 50% damage in a further 50 hectares.  “One hundred hectares have been devastated just in Urville alone,” says Michel Drappier of the eponymous house, the largest in the region which is based in the village.

Michel Drappier in his vineyards in Urville

“The damage is estimated at 130% because at least 30% of the 2013 crop will also be affected,” says Drappier. “The rest of the coteaux has also suffered. According to the Services Techniques of the CIVC, who have visited our vineyards this morning (13th June), it is the third largest hail damage in the history of the Champagne region,” he says.

It all happened in the space of around 15 minutes and the villages of Meurville and Baroville had damage on a similar scale to Urville. The livelihoods of many growers are threatened, though fortunately most will have sufficient stock in their réserve individuelles to enable them to still produce around three quarters of the volume of champagne they made last year. However, using up all their reserve stock, as many will have to do, will leave them without any cover in the event of problems next year (in 2013). According to the CIVC the réserve individuelle across the appellation currently stands at an average of 8,185 kg/ha per producer.

“The Réserve Individuelle should cover, on average, the needs of the growers; the question is what about 2013? From today we have no more security stock in our cellars and each cloud passing by will be scrutinized closely. Here [at Drappier] we have sufficient stock and making a quality wine in 2012 will be no problem. But we will have to be careful with our sales and hold back some volume, especially for our Quattuor Blanc de Quatre Blancs which uses old varieties as we didn’t produce any in 2011 and won’t now be able to in either 2012 or 2013,” says Drappier.

The CIVC Services Techniques later reported that the area of vineyard in each village ‘affected’ by the hailstorm as follows:  Fontaine 100%; Baroville 97%; Bergères 100%; Meurville 74%; Urville 97%. They added all the vineyards in the villages of Bertignolles, Bragelogne-Beauvoir and Arconville were also hit by the same hailstorm, while those in Noé les Mallets, Saint Usage (98%) and Bligny (69%) were damaged to a lesser
extent.

Veuve Clicquot tasting of 1839 fizz found in Baltic wreck

Champagne experts from around the world gathered last Friday (25 May) for a historical tasting of old vintages at Veuve Clicquot’s Hôtel du Marc headquarters in Reims, the highlight of which was to be a bottle of Veuve Clicquot thought to date from 1839, found on a shipwreck at the bottom of the Baltic in 2010. At the tasting there were eight wines to try starting with the yet unreleased 2008 Yellow Label white and rosé bases, continuing with La Grande Dame Rosé 1988 (magnum); La Grande Dame 1962; Yellow Label 1953 in magnum; Vintage Rosé 1947; Vintage 1904 and finally the wine from the Baltic, Clicquot’s archivists believe dates from 1839.

This bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne had been lying at the bottom of the Baltic Sea in a ship that sunk near the Åland Islands in the first half of the 19th century, over 170 years ago and came from a batch of 145 successfully salvaged champagne bottles, all of which were tasted by expert tasters including wine writer Richard Juhlin, with some 79 being assessed as ‘drinkable’ and re-corked.

Out of the 145 bottles of champagne bought up from the seabed, four are from Heidsieck & Co, 46 are from Veuve Clicquot while the remaining 95 are bottles of Champagne Juglar, a house the name of which disappeared from labels in 1829 when it merged with Champagne Jacquesson. A total of 162 bottles were salvaged in July 2010 of which one was opened and tasted by the divers who found the wreck, four are beer bottles, two were impossible to identify, two were broken, three bottles leaked and five further bottles were left in Åland’s museum.

The remaining 145, the oldest intact champagne bottles ever found under the sea still with their corks in place, were identified and dated thanks to the marks on their corks found during reconditioning, during which process the 79 of them judged as drinkable were given new corks. That the old corks survived intact, until they came into contact with oxygen when bought to the surface, is thought to be partly thanks to the pressure at the depth of 48 metres being very similar to that inside a champagne bottle at around 5 bars.

It’s also partly down to the Baltic Sea’s particular characteristics, namely that it is less salty, relatively calm with dark, cool waters and a constant temperature of around 4-5degC.

The Åland government in whose territorial waters between Finland and Sweden the wreck was discovered plans to auction 11 of the ‘drinkable’ bottles of champagne – one from Heidsieck & Co, four from Veuve Clicquot and six from Juglar — on 8 June 2012 hoping to beat the record set by one of the two bottles they auctioned last year for €30,000. Funds raised by the sale, which will also include 17 prestigious lots donated by Veuve Clicquot –magnums of 1989 Cave Privée Rosé, 1980 Cave Privée and 1990 Cave Privée being the pick of these – will be used for a charitable marine preservation fund set up by the Aland Government.

Speaking at the Clicquot tasting last Friday, Juhlin said the Clicquot wines were generally in better condition than the others, partly because their corks appeared to be higher quality.  He has written a tasting note for the 11 different champagnes being auctioned on 8th June giving the wines marks out of 100 with each scoring between 93, the highest mark for one of the four Clicquot bottles, and 80 the lowest for the single bottle of Heidsieck & Co.

Each of the 11 wines featuring in the auction still had some fizziness left and Juhlin notes each ‘popped’ when they were originally opened and re-corked back in November 2010. At the tasting last Friday the bottle of Veuve Clicquot ‘1939’ again made a gentle popping noise when opened by Clicquot’s Chef de Cave Dominique Demarville, revealing it still had a certain amount of fizz left in the bottle. Anyone expecting it to rival the previous delights of the Clicquot wines from 1988 to 1904 would however probably have been disappointed.

Woody and recognisably sweet but not overly so — during this period in the early nineteenth century champagne had very high dosage levels varying between around 50 to close on 300gms/l, the lower end being five times the average for Brut styles of champagne sold today – the wine had an almost overpoweringly pungent agricultural aroma, a little like an over-ripe soft cheese and this strong smell dominated the taste too.

But then few people who like modern champagne would have enjoyed the heavily doctored,  sweetened wines produced in Champagne in the early nineteenth century in perfect condition. Tastes have changed.  We should be thankful that this historical tasting gave a rare opportunity to try such a wine, a wine that has survived nearly two centuries in the bottle it was made in.

Bolly launches ‘mini magnum’ shaped bottle

Bollinger bottles new (on the right) and old shapes

Bollinger has introduced a new ‘magnum shaped’ bottle for its champagnes based on a bottle dating from 1846 found in the company cellars in Aÿ.

As well as looking more distinctive, the unique shape with a narrower neck, initially to be used for halves, bottles, magnums and jeroboams of Special Cuvée, comes much closer to replicating the ideal ratio of air to liquid found in the traditional magnum, a relationship which affects the rate of oxidation in this format. Experience tells us champagne matures more slowly in a magnum and for some reason always seems to taste better, so it appears that Bollinger is onto a winner here.

“In the new bottle format the speed of ageing will slow,” says Bollinger MD Jérôme Philipon, “keeping the wine fresher for longer. We have been working on the project for four years. The brut rosé will move to the new shape next year and we have bottled the 2008 La Grande Année in it too. The unique bottle shape will also enhance the authenticity of our brand and while it weighs the same we will be able to put 600 as opposed to 500 bottles on a pallet, making it more eco-friendly too.”

Bollinger MD Jérôme Philipon with the new Bollinger bottle at the London Wine Trade Fair launch in May

Ruinart and Clicquot move further on disgorgement dates

Ruinart has in fact already begun putting disgorgement dates on its vintage wines, starting with the 2004*vintage released in 2009, Frédéric Panaiotis confirmed at the recent launch of Dom Ruinart 2002. “I wanted to introduce disgorgement dates at Ruinart when I first came here [from Veuve  Clicquot] five years ago,” he told me, “but only for Dom Ruinart and the vintage wines, it’s too complicated to manage for the non-vintage.

Frederic Panaiotis, Ruinart Chef de Cave
Frederic Panaiotis, Ruinart Chef de Cave at the launch of Dom Ruinart 2002

“We started with the back label of the vintage 2004. We only have two different back labels for vintage and it’s released in two batches so it’s easier to do. Dom Ruinart is released in four batches with 25 different back labels so it’s very difficult to manage but we are going to do it soon, giving the month and year of disgorgement.”

Veuve Clicquot is also moving in this direction and plans to go further, eventually putting the date of disgorgement even on its non-vintage Yellow Label, or at least supplying this information via its website or a QR  code on the bottle. Cyril Brun from the winemaking team at Clicquot says at present they give both the date of disgorgement and the dosage, but only for the Cave Privée range [re-releases of older vintages]. But he confirms: “We are currently working on extending this step by step to the rest of the range.”

These moves from LVMH owned brands follow the decision at Krug to make this detail available for all the wines in their entire range (except Krug Collection) bottled since July 2011 via a unique ID code on the bottles you can look up on the Krug website.

*We don’t officially see Ruinart straight vintage wines in the UK, because the marketing people at Moët Hennessy have decided to concentrate on promoting Ruinart Blanc de Blancs and rosé NV styles that are positioned at a slight price premium to vintage and being cheaper to produce (they are not aged for nearly the same length of time) are more profitable. But you could in fact find them in the UK at Nicolas shops until very recently (priced at £62.99 vs the Rosé and Blanc de Blancs price of £63.50) as the chain made all its champagne purchases in France.

Disgorgement dates: who else will follow?

Is the move to put a date of disgorgement on all quality champagne gathering momentum? Moët has revealed it is going to put disgorgement dates on the 2004 Grand Vintage in white and rosé styles when they are officially launched later this year. Perhaps this is partly to highlight the longer ageing these wines are now getting, and the importance winemaker Benoît Gouez is placing on additional post-disgorgement ageing before release – the white 2004 will get 12 months, we understand, in addition to nearly seven years on its lees. Richard Geoffroy at Dom Pérignon has also been giving longer post-disgorgement ageing to recent releases of DP.

Moët management has always claimed that it would create problems and confuse consumers if they did this with Moët Brut Imperial NV, following the line taken by many other houses, that consumers might think it was a ‘sell by’ or ‘best before’ date. There is no hard evidence that they have changed their minds, but perhaps they have seen that Lanson now puts a date of disgorgement on all its range of champagnes, vintage and non-vintage, and it doesn’t appear to have caused them any such problems.

It can hardly have escaped their notice either that many other small, quality-minded producers are also giving this information now, along with the majority of higher profile growers. Krug too has just started making this detail available for wines bottled since July 2011 via its website, although Olivier Krug doesn’t see it as important. It can’t be long before Veuve Clicquot and Ruinart follow suit, surely? Clicquot already gives this information for its Cave Privée range of vintage re-releases and head winemaker Dominique Demarville is certainly open to the idea. It will be interesting to see what Frédéric Panaiotis, Chef de Cave at Ruinart, has to say on the subject at the release of Dom Ruinart 2002 later this week.

Frost hits low lying vineyards planted with Chardonnay

Philippe Brun and neighbour inspect the frost damage to vines in Mareuil-sur-Ay

Frost on the night of April 16/17 have severely damaged part of the Champagne vineyard, destroying embryonic buds on the vines showing their first leaves as many, particularly Chardonnay, already are.

Driving around vineyards this morning (18 April) in Grande Vallée de la Marne including Aÿ, Mareuil-sur-Aÿ and Avenay, I saw widespread damage, in the relatively forward Chardonnay in the low lying flat areas of vineyard close to the Marne River, but also in some Pinot Noir parcels.

Talking to other vineyard workers inspecting their own vines we heard about one producer who had lost around one hectare of vineyard in Le Mesnil sur Oger on the same night of 16 April but this information is as yet unconfirmed.

With temperatures dropping to as low as -4degC and -5degC on the night of the 16th, the damage was confined to vineyards on the valley floor and to those vines already in bud or where second and third leaves had developed.

Frost damaged vine in Mareuil-sur-Ay

Looking at the vineyards some 36 hours later in certain places all the buds were frozen, however it won’t be possible to assess the extent of the damage fully for a couple more days by which time the effected parts go black and buds drop off.

It is mainly Chardonnay which is affected and the problem here is exacerbated as Chardonnay grows quickly once the first buds break. In the low lying vineyards of Mareuil-sur-Ay where Pinot Meunier is still planted, as it used to be more widely in the past, there is no problem as the vines are not yet in bud. There was also a less severe frost on the night of Friday 13 April reported as destroying around 5% of Chardonnay is some parts of Villers-Marmery. (More news to follow soon)

Further comments 25 April 2012:

Olivier Bonville of Franck Bonville, a grower based in Avize says: “Frost affected about 30% of our vineyard. After the warm temperatures in March the vines were already showing two leaves and we were also hit by frost in the previous week on the night of 12/13 April when temperatures fell to -2 to -3degC.”

For Arnaud Margaine, a grower with vineyards in Villers-Marmery on the east facing slopes on the Montagne de Reims, the frosts of April 13 caused less than 5% damage but the night of 16/17th was colder and “we saw 15-20% of the vines damaged. But it is still too early to see the impact on the next harvest as some new buds may grow”.

Benoît Gouez winemaker at Moët & Chandon just back from the USA this week reports that “Globally between 7 and 8% of [the potential crop] our vineyards have been destroyed,” with the worst damage in the grands crus of Avize and Aÿ – 18 and 17% respectively but Cramant “12% destroyed and Bouzy 9%” also hit. The vines in the Côte des Bar to the south-east of Troyes where Pinot Noir is planted mainly were hardest struck and Gouez says Moët has lost nearly one fifth of its crop there.

Grower producer Cyril Jeaunaux based in the village of Talus-Saint Prix to the south-west of the Côte des Blancs says they suffered 40% frost damage in his vineyards with the worst affected areas on low lying land in the west part of the village. “Chardonnay isn’t more affected than Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier even though it was much more developed. We are often hit here because of early bud break and higher humidity than some areas which is caused by proximity to the Petit Morin river”, says Jeaunaux. “This year in Villenard, which is next to Talus, the damage is less serious with only 10-15% of the vines are affected.”

Regis Camus the winemaker at P&C Heidsieck says: “Pinot Meunier wasn’t touched by the recent frosts it was Pinot Noir that was worse affected with around 10% damage in the Marne Valley and as much as 20% in the Côte des Bar. Chardonnay near the valley floor it the Côte des Blancs was also damaged but it is still hard to say how badly as it has rained steadily since and there are no new green shoots appearing. It is likely there will be secondary buds growing on the damaged vines but these will either bear less or no fruit,” say Camus, “so in either case yields will be down. The frost has also stressed the vines making them more susceptible to disease like rot or mildew.”

Terres et Vins tasting encourages more groups to show wines together

The fourth annual tasting of the Terres et Vins group representing 19 like-minded growers takes place this Monday 16 April in AŸ.  And this year in addition to the second annual tasting of the 14-strong Les Artisans du Champagne group to be held in Reims the following day (17 April) as it was in 2011, two other groups of small producers are staging their inaugural events on the 15th and 16th.

Terre Et Vins April 2011

The first new group called TraitD, involves just six producers including the small, highly rated house of Jacquesson, run by Jean-Hervé and Laurent Chiquet. The Chiquet brothers are joined by Anselme and Corinne Selosse, Pierre and Sophie Larmandier (Larmandier-Bernier), Agnes and Jerome Prevost, Francis and Annick Egly (Egly-Ouriet), plus Eric and Isabelle Coulon (Roger Coulon). Their tasting takes place on the morning of the 16th in Avize.

The fourth tasting is of the new Terroirs & Talents of Champagne group and takes place on Sunday 15 April at Le Théatre Restaurant in Epernay.

The full list of growers involved in the Terres et Vins group is as follows: Pascal Agrapart, Françoise Bedel, Raphaël Bérèche, Francis Boulard, Alexandre Chartogne, Vincent Couche, Pascal Doquet, Jean-Baptiste Geoffroy, Etienne Goutorbe, Olivier Horiot, Cyril Jeaunaux, Benoit Lahaye, Aurélien Laherte, David Leclapart, Dominique Moreau, Franck Pascal, Olivier Paulet, Fabrice Pouillon and Benoit Tarlant. Dominique Moreau is the only newcomer to the group, although others have inquired, says Benoit Tarlant. Tarlant explains they don’t want to get too big so that staging events remains manageable.

Champagne shipments third highest ever in 2011

The Champenois are relieved to hear that champagne shipments rose very slightly in 2011, despite a fall in the important French domestic market that accounts for around 60% of all sales. Or as Michel Letter head of G.H. Mumm and Perrier-Jouët put it: “2011 was the third best year ever after 1999 and 2007 with total shipments reaching 323m bottles, up 1.09% on 2010, not bad considering the worldwide economic situation”.

Among the top ten export destinations only Britain, down 2.7% to 34.4m bottles and Spain (-0.3%) had a drop in shipments while Belgium and Germany both saw 8.5% growth. Although consumption in France was down nearly 2%, overall exports were up just over 5% to slightly above 141m bottles with the strongest performances coming outside Europe, notably in Australia, up nearly a third, and the USA ahead by 14.4% to 19.4m bottles.

The best performers in the emerging markets were Russia, China and Hong Kong with respective increases of 24.5, 19.4 and 15.1%, although the rate of growth slowed in the second half of 2011 and these three markets between them still only account for 4.1m bottles.