A visitor to the site complained earlier in the week that they couldn’t find any discounted magnums of Bollinger Special Cuvée in Waitrose stores and thus I should remove this information from the website. As it states in the Latest champagne offers page, and in the blog published on 11 December this deal which sees the price drop to £67.49 (for Waitrose card holders the magnum price was down to £60.72 until 16 December) is only running in a dozen stores and on WaitroseCellar.com. I checked with the Waitrose and this is the list of 13 (not 12) outlets they gave me: Bath, Belgravia, Berkhamsted, Cambridge, Canary Wharf, Crewkerne, JL Foodhall Oxford Street, John Barnes, Lymington, Marylebone, Rushden, St Katharine Docks and West Ealing.
I’d be pleased to hear from anyone finding, or not finding, the discounted magnums in any of these stores. When I last checked the WaitroseCellar.com website was out of stock but this evening (18 December) it had magnums available, but the discounted price was £75 not £67.49. The discrepancy here appears to be because Waitrose, or possibly Bollinger, has hiked the price of magnums to £100 not the £89.99 figure that went out to journalists a few weeks back in the email giving Waitrose’s wine offers for the current trading period.
It seems the supermarkets (and other large retailers) are changing the regular selling prices so often you may find that a larger percentage discount sometimes results in a higher selling price for certain champagnes.
I have had quite a few emails from readers recently asking me if this ‘cheap’ champagne sold by such and such a supermarket is actually any good and worth buying. Even one enquiry as to whether Tesco’s ‘exclusive label’ Louis Delaunay Brut would keep long enough for a wedding in June next year. This and many other similar questions led to the idea of setting up a blind tasting of a cross section of such supermarket wines, the champagnes that tend to have the most dramatic discounts at key times of the year, so it all seemed very timely.
Seven of the best fizzes in our tasting all priced under £20 in the run-up to Christmas
I asked Anthony Rose of the Independent to drop by and help me assess them. I didn’t call in any samples of the supermarket ‘own label’ champagnes (bar one from Morrisons) but concentrated on the more obscure names, suppliers of which tend to change relatively frequently, so style and often quality can be inconsistent. All the wines included will be retailing at some point before the New Year at under £20 a bottle, some for considerably less. The Louis Delaunay mentioned above will only be priced at under £10 (if you buy four bottles) for another 24 hours (though I daresay the price will drop to near this level again in the next five weeks).
To make things a bit more interesting I included two sparkling wines in the line-up – one English, one Australian. As it happens both Chapel Down Vintage Réserve and Cloudy Bay Pelorus will be on promotion too soon, both being priced at £14.99-£15.99 a bottle. With the possible exception of Nicolas Feuillatte champagne, they were arguably the two strongest brands in the 18 strong line-up. Pelorus is of course owned by Veuve Clicquot, and they know a thing or two about branding there.
Anyway I digress. You’ll want to know the results of our tasting and which of these fizzes we reckon are worth shelling out for. We picked seven champagnes that scored 87 points or more, a level both the Chapel Down and the Pelorus also achieved. Following on from a very impressive Lidl tasting for journalists last week (of which there will be more in a few days) it was little surprise to see the Lidl Comte de Senneval Grand Réserve (£17.99) do well. It was the only wholly Grand Cru sourced champagne.
It was a surprise when the wrappers from the blind tasting came off to see we marked the Tesco exclusive Louis Delaunay one point higher. If you want to try it you have only 24 hours to get it at just £9.74 a bottle (providing you buy four). The better known regular discount vehicles from Tesco and Sainsbury’s — Andre Carpentier and Etienne Dumont respectively – were rather dull in comparison. But things picked up again with Veuve Davanlay from Morrisons, which will be selling at better than half price — £12 as you ask – from the start of December. Though I wouldn’t want to spend £28.99 on this wine, we both preferred it to the Morrisons M Signature Brut that costs £18.99.
We then hit a good patch with the two sparklers; Nicolas Feuillatte Grande Réserve Brut (£15 at Sainsbury’s until the New Year), Laytons Brut Réserve from Jeroboams (down to £15.95 a bottle and you can also get halves and magnums) and finally a newcomer to M&S, Abel Chalot Brut which will be half price down from £32 to £16 from 2 December. This last named champagne I gave my highest score to, after enjoying a couple of glasses of it the next day watching England play appalling rugby. It quite cheered me up.
On Sunday a group of consumers came round to try the fizzes and we will report on what they thought shortly.
Now the holiday period is over Tesco is raising its game introducing a blanket 25% off all wine and champagne prices (bought in store in any combination of six bottles) while other scheduled discounts are already running for a 12 day period starting today Thursday 4 September. Under this deal the price of Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label comes down to £20.81 if you buy six bottles or more and Tesco Finest Rosé to £14.99. Under its soon to end warehouse clearance sale Tesco also still has some stock left of two very decent fizzes from grower Michel Gonet at £13.89 and £18.09 respectively. See Latest Offers page for all the current deals.
The brief lull in discounting didn’t last long. Both M&S and Sainsbury’s have introduced deals offering a 25% discount on any wine purchases of six bottles or more. And Tesco has started some good deals on line, as predicted all in time for the bank holiday weekend. ASDA’s current best deal is also on line where its wine shop has GH Mumm Cordon Rouge Brut at just £20 a bottle. But it’s cheaper still at Sainsbury’s currently.
At Sainsbury’s if you add the 25% discount to the current deals there are two champagnes at under £10 a bottle while at the other end of the non-vintage market, Laurent-Perrier Brut Rosé comes down to a pretty reasonable £36 a bottle. Compare that with the current Majestic single bottle price for the same wine of £75. And GH Mumm, very decent fizz these days, can be bought for just £17.63 a bottle if you buy six bottles of wine or more (doesn’t all have to be champagne). See latest retail offers page.
Following on from my top ten pink champagnes selection last month, I realised I hadn’t really done anything about the large range of growers’ pink champagnes that are now available in the UK at various specialist retailers. So with the help of Berry Bros & Rudd, who have one of the very best selections of ‘artisan’ champagne in the country, I put together a small tasting of mostly growers’ rosés and called in Anthony Rose of The Independent to join me in trying them.
The line-up included six growers’ champagnes, and three from small négociants with only the Billecart-Salmon style from a well-known house. There were six pinks made by blending (adding a portion of red wine to white champagne) and three saignée rosés (where the colour is ‘bled’ off the skins), plus a fourth made from a combination of the two methods. We tasted them blind taking our time to assess each wine, looking at the blends first.
Our favourite wine on the day was the R&L Legras Brut Rosé (93/100, 94/100). Complex, smoky, it has a lip-smacking refreshing, savoury quality that made it hard to resist drinking it in the tasting. It was closely followed by Philipponnat Brut Réserve Rosée, (92/100, 93/100). I moved the Philipponnat pink up a mark after consuming it with brilliant fish & chips (from Bowen’s, St Dogmaels, Pembrokeshire) a couple of day later, a great match thanks to the wine’s richness and vinosity, that’s boosted by having a large portion of reserve wine in the blend. I gave the Berry Bros UK Grand Cru Rosé made by Benoît Marguet my third highest mark. As the only wine in the tasting priced under £30 it certainly represents terrific value and Benoît is a fine producer whose champagnes generally are really worth seeking out.
The two wines from the Côte des Bar region, Champagne’s southernmost where Pinot Noir is the most widely planted grape (both featuring in my top ten pinks last month), also showed well. Drappier’s pink, which has long been a favourite of mine, showed an ample, generous Pinot Noir driven richness while the biodynamic produced Fleury, is a winey, muscular style that calls for food.
By chance the first wine in the line-up was Billecart’s Salmon’s a classically fresh, aperitif pink showing a lovely balance and a perfect benchmark style to assess the other wines against. The bottle of Pierre Peters Rosé d’Albane we had at the original tasting was faulty but a subsequent sample demonstrated that this fine Le Mesnil based producer also makes an attractive, delicate but intense pink fizz.
Paul Bara Grand Rosé de Bouzy: 88/100 (AR); 87/100 (GF), £32.45 Berry Bros & Rudd www.bbr.com
Andre Jacquart Rosé de Saignée ‘Experience’ Premier Cru, 88/100 (AR); 88/100 (GF), www.topselection.co.uk
Pierre Peters Rosé d’Albane, Second sample 90/100 (GF), £36 Berry Bros & Rudd www.bbr.com
Anthony Rose’s tasting notes:
1. Fleury Rosé de Saignée. A lively pink light cherryish colour, quite vinous on the nose, and equally on the palate, lots of rich, almost sweet strawberryish fruit, nice lingering depth and winey texture with attractive depth and vinosity, very much a food wine with good personality, balance and tangy finish. Good for seafood. 91 / 100
2. Drappier Rosé. Pale bronzey pink, immediate, fresh, pleasant nose, some rich berry fruit on the palate, full-bodied, nicely vinous and very attractive, good concentration, almost juicy with redcurrant and cherry fruit tang to it, nice dry finish, good personality with a touch of tannin for food-friendly, savoury-winey character. Serious. 91 / 100
3. Pierre Peters Rosé. First sample at the tasting was faulty.
4. André Jacquart Rosé. Inelegant cherry / rosehip red colour, quite strong smoky oak and vanilla aromas, ripe sweet cherry fruit with lots of smoky oak behind it; some may like this style but it’s probably quite controversial because the oak’s in the foreground rather than the background, a rioja of champagne? 88 / 100
5. Billecart-Salmon Rosé. Pale bronze pink, lovely freshness and life, very bright, quite big bubbles, lovely intense and fruit nose, rich soft mousse of bubbles, initial strawberry sweetness balanced by a tangy redcurranty fresh acidity and elegant dry finish. Drink with food but a classic style, for drinking mainly as an aperitif. 91 /100
6. De Sousa Rosé. Aged in oak, 92% chardonnay and 8% pinot noir, rather deeply-hued for a rosé, quite cherryish in colour, rather dumb on the nose but a touch of spicy oak, idiosyncratic, nice sweet and sour cherry in the mouth, rustic and winey at the same time, almost more of a food wine than a champagne; not smooth but quite tangy and dry and has character, lots of it. Very much a seafood champagne. 90 / 100
7. Philipponnat Réserve Rosée. Pale bronze in colour, creamy-looking bead, lovely light savoury toast on the nose, very rich and complex, a suggestion of reserve wine maturity and richness, more complex than simply fruit, equally deliciously rich toasty fizz with powerfully textured creamy bead of bubbles; long and lingering flavours. 92 / 100
8. R&L Legras Rosé. Pale bronze pink, tiny bead of persistent bubbles, attractively fresh, smoky-creamy and fruit aromas and flavours, lovely strawberryish fruit quality, richly textured mousse, nice freshness and balance, with long, fine dry savoury lipsmacking finish that makes it hard not to swallow as you taste. It grows on you as you drink it. 93 /100
9. Paul Bara Rosé. A deep pink bronze, quite a lot of dark red berry on the nose, sweetish strawberry and cherry fruit with rather obvious sweetness that makes the wine a tad heavy in the mouth and lacking in finesse, and less refreshing that you might hope for, but pleasant enough as a drink with slight bitter-skin finish. 88 / 100
10. Berry Bros & Rudd Grand Cru Rosé. Benoit Marguet. 70% chardonnay and 30% pinot noir, lovely pale bronze colour with bubbles swirling in the glass, fine fresh and intense aromatics, lovely rich berry fruit, very fruity in fact on the palate, powerfully concentrated and full-bodied, lots of flavour intensity, rich and yet delicate at the same time, with finely textured mousse and excellent finish. 90+ /100
I used to be unenthusiastic about rosé champagne. I have an issue with the fact that it is generally priced at a similar level to vintage champagne, but rarely offers anything like the same emjoyable drinking experience. However I have to admit there are now many more attractive pink champagnes on the market and for Valentine’s Day lots of people will be drawn into buying pink fizz. So what are the best options, outside the supermarket norm but not in the stratospheric price territory (over £200) occupied by the big brands’ rosés, the likes of Cristal, Dom Pérignon, Krug, Comtes de Champagne, Clicquot’s La Grande Dame and Laurent-Perrier’s Cuvée Alexandra?
I am particularly attracted to the more winey, Burgundy style Pinot Noir driven pinks that age really well and work surprisingly well with food, particularly game. In this camp I’d include Veuve Clicquot Cave Privée Rosé, ideally the 1989 vintage which is still available, if in fairly limited distribution. Ten years younger, but both delicious in their different ways are Charles Heidsieck’s 1999 Rosé and Bollinger La Grande Année 1999 Rosé, Closer in style to the Clicquot with powerful rich Pinot Noir from Les Riceys playing a significant role in the blend comes Nicolas Feuillatte’s Palmes d’Or Rosé. I have the 1999, 2004 and 2005 vintages and will probably open the ‘99 myself on the 14th.
More delicate in style, but slightly more expensive is the creamy textured Billecart-Salmon’s Cuvée Elisabeth Salmon 2002. Great value but certainly not inferior comes the delicately fruity, but distinctly classy Joseph Perrier 2004 Rosé. Bruno Paillard Premier Cru Rosé is another winner resonating breeding and, as the best pinks are, very moreish. And Gosset Grande Rosé, which I tried again only this afternoon, is a very desirable, seductive pink that rapidly disappears.
That only leaves two remaining slots to fill and for these I am going to go to the Côte des Bar region to the south-east of Troyes where Michel Drappier makes a charming Burgundy-like pink and bio-dynamic producer Fleury produces something substantial and savoury, that would easily and enjoyably be consumed with an Asian duck dish. Finally I am going to cheat and add an 11th pink that is widely distributed in the supermarkets, that from Veuve Clicquot. This is probably the pink fizz I have tried most often in the past 18 months and has been consistently among the most enjoyable.
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.
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.
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 offerspage
It was Easter in 2000 when the whole idea of slashing Champagne prices during key trading periods was started by Sainsbury’s, partly to get rid of unsold ‘Millennium’ stock. Fast forward 13 years and it is still happening, though the major international brands whose prices have all gone up recently, have mostly avoided the deep discounting. But Easter looks like bringing some great deals out and Sainsbury’s has cut its price of Bollinger Special Cuvée to just £25 a bottle until 2nd April while Tesco is giving 25% off six bottle purchases. See the Latest Retail Offers page.
