Champagne Guru

In praise of magnums

As you have probably gathered from recent posts, and those during last year’s festive season, I am a fan of magnums. The magnum is without doubt the perfect receptacle for ageing champagne in and in nearly all cases in my experience, faced with the same wine served from a standard 75cl bottle or magnum format, the latter will taste better.

Champagne aged in magnum develops and evolves more slowly, so it will always seem fresher than its 75cl counterpart. But it isn’t just about freshness, there’s extra zip, more nuances of flavour, and ultimately greater complexity. As I have noted because producers are aware of this, some houses will release and sell their magnum stock at a later point after longer ageing than their bottles. In the case of non-vintage blends, sometimes the base wine that is likely to make up the largest portion of the blend, will be from an older harvest in the case of the magnum non-vintage cuvée – this, as I have mentioned recently elsewhere, is the case in the example of both Bollinger and Veuve Clicquot.

If you are looking to buy something now in magnum for a special celebration over the holidays, it’s really non-vintage wines we are talking about here. Vintage champagne in magnum can also be sublime, but many current releases in magnum simply aren’t ready to drink, at least not if you wish to enjoy them at anything close to their peak. In terms of development they may be three or four years behind the same wine in 75cl bottle format.

For the better houses the price of a magnum is often more than the price of two bottles. That’s partly why I was keen to highlight the deal at Waitrose (13 stores and online) on magnums of Bollinger Special Cuvée, which at least one regular visitor to the site has found and purchased for only a shade over £60.

But where else outside the supermarkets – Sainsbury’s and Tesco have both had good deals on Veuve Clicquot in large bottles – can you find any stock of non-vintage champagne in magnum that you could buy and drink without disappointment (if you have the chance and the cellar space, most good non-vintage champagne in magnum will develop very well over a couple of years or so and if you can afford to put some away so much the better) in the next few days.

Hunting the other day for some bargains among the pages of the Majestic website I found they had quite a selection, albeit that not every store stocks them, so you might have to hunt around. Two of the least expensive on which there are both good deals are Laurent-Perrier, currently down from £70 to £50, and Perrier-Jouët Grand Brut which is £55. Both with the emphasis on freshness, lightness and balance would make great aperitif fizzes for Christmas Day or Boxing Day or before a celebration dinner. Taittinger Brut Réserve with its largish splash of Chardonnay is in a similar vein and down from £70 to £60 per magnum.

The more muscular ‘R’ de Ruinart blend in its distinctive bulbous bottle, down from £100 to £75 a magnum would add a note of class. Class, luxury and seductive creamy texture can be found in the Veuve Clicquot rosé magnums which will set you back £95.

If you want a Blanc de Blancs (all Chardonnay) magnum Ruinart may provide the answer and it’s down from £125 to £100, as is their rosé, though I’d favour the Clicquot pink wine and save a fiver. The much improved G.H. Mumm Cordon Rouge blend in magnum, sprayed about on the F1 podium, is £60 as is the apple fresh Lanson Black Label. Bollinger is down from £99 to £80 is you can’t find a Waitrose store stocking it and this wine is a treat with real depth of flavour. Another Pinot Noir dominant non-vintage cuvée of real class which has been on particularly good form in 75cl bottle format when tasted over the course of this year is Louis Roederer Brut Premier which rather surprisingly Majestic sells in magnum at a regular price £10 less than the discounted Bollinger — ie £70. This is a brisker, fresher style but develops beautifully with time so really you should be buying magnums now for 2016 and beyond.

In terms of flavour profile I tend to think of Pol Roger as somewhere between Bollinger and Roederer but it is another serious contender in the magnum stakes. You can buy it from Champagnedirect.co.uk for £74.97 (plus at least £6.95 delivery) in time for the New Year celebrations. Berry Bros & Rudd has a three magnum deal on Pol – enabling you to put two away for future celebrations — whereby the regular price of £84 falls to £67.20 a magnum, a saving of £50.40. This is the preferred Christmas tipple of their talented buyer Simon Field MW, whose commentary on the delights of the magnum, kindly penned for my book on Champagne, I am reproducing below its glorious unedited entirety.

Magnum Force

“Champagne comes in a bewildering array of bottle sizes, from the somewhat perfunctory quarter bottle, best concealed in a floral gift when visiting a hospitalised relative, all the way up to the Nebuchadnezzar and beyond, the larger the size the more impractical the vessel and the more remote the eponymous Biblical origin.

Nebuchadnezzar we have heard of; he, after all, was famous for selling his wife for a pair of shoes. But Melchizedek I know not; a Melchizedek is a 30 litre bottle, and in addition to being fantastically impractical (unless one has a small crane to hand) is also bound to be of inferior quality, as the liquid has been decanted from a series of smaller bottles, post ageing, and will have lost freshness and fizz in the process.

Indeed this process, known as transvasage, is practiced on all the large formats above jeroboam size and instantly rules them out as candidates for the best bottle size. But why the Magnum? Well beyond the theatre and the sheer indulgence of having one on one’s table, the voice of experience dictates that this size, above all others, allows Champagne to age most gracefully and to maintain the fundamental tension between acidity, sugar, fruit and fizz which make this small and essentially rather dull region so famous.

It’s all to do, they say, with the rate of oxidation and the relative surface area of liquid exposed to the air. So they say. All rather tenuous in my opinion. For me it’s a matter of taste alone and for this reason, every Christmas Day, we open up proceedings (not a minute before noon you understand) with a Magnum of Pol Roger. Not a bottle, not a Methuselah and most certainly not a wretched Melchizedek, but a Magnum. Sir Winston Churchill would approve, I suspect.”
Simon Field MW, buyer at Berry Bros & Rudd

Consumers pick their under £20 favourites

I reported last month on the blind tasting Anthony Rose and I did of 18 champagnes and sparklers priced at £20 and under. A couple of days after we did our tasting, I invited a group of eight consumers round to taste the same 18 wines to see whether they agreed with our assessments.

These were not experts, although they all like the odd glass of fizz, and it was perhaps slightly unfair to ask them to taste 18 different sparkling wines in one sitting. Even people working full time in the wine trade would find assessing this number of sparklers accurately in one go a pretty difficult task. However it did throw up some interesting results and amusing comments and while they didn’t completely agree with us by any means, they did generally like many of the wines we highlighted in the latter part of the tasting. They didn’t much enjoy the Veuve Devanley Brut NV (Morrisons £12) which we gave one of our highest scores to, though one taster picked up ‘biscuity notes’. The Chapel Down English fizz was universally well received and scored the highest marks.

Top ten fizzes consumers voted for with comments from the tasting panel:

Chapel Down Brut Vintage Réserve NV: “Fruity, pleasant aromas, very drinkable. Stylish label stands out from the others,” JH. “Surprisingly pleasant without any bitter aftertaste,” MT. “Really liked this, with marmitey notes. Liked label too,” LT. “Quite good, with a light bubbles,” PT. “Classy label, good fruit, nice finish. Kentishman done good,” NH.

Benoît Renaud Brut NV: “Light, refreshing, delicate fizz with fruity after taste leaves you wanting more,” JH. “Lighter aroma, very dry, pleasant and dry, suitable for a long session,” MT. “Well-balanced, peachy, highly drinkable, longer lasting on the Ashley,” NH. “Not as fruity as some but has lovely flavour. Could drink a lot of this,” ES.

Nicolas Feuillatte Grande Réserve Brut NV: “Like this, would pour it for the ChampagneGuru,” NH. “Fruity little number that stays on the palate,” ES. “Decent weight and richness on the palate, good finish,” CF.

Abel Chalot Brut NV: “Rounded dry and pleasant first taste, a good drop to end with,” MT. “Very good,” LT. “More flavoursome than most, relatively good,” ML.

De Vallois Brut NV: “Quite rich initial taste and warm, lingering flavour,” MT. “Quite nice aroma, hint of pear and a flavour that delivers,” ML.

Defontaine Brut NV: “A good party fizz and pre-dinner drink,” JH. “Powerful initial taste, aromatic, rounded on the plate, moderate length,” MT. “Very dry, fine aroma, dried apricots,” NH.

Laytons Brut Réserve NV: “Very bubbly and pleasantly dry, really tasted authentic,” MT. “Creamy, well-balanced,” NH.

Louis Delaunay Brut NV: “I liked this, nice and dry and smooth, I’d buy it,” LT. “Quite mellow with a long finish,” CF.

Andre Carpentier Brut NV: “Quite light, but nice flavour,” PT.

Comte de Senneval Brut: “Long and pleasant aftertaste, easy style I could drink all night,” JH.

2014 harvest a mixed bag though some see quality as high

Despite warm dry spring weather, which had producers predicting a late August harvest, cool wet weather in July and August slowed the ripening process down and the Champagne harvest began in the Côte des Bar region and early ripening villages like Cumières in the second week of September around the 8th and 9th. Following a successful even flowering period in ideal conditions at the start of June all three main varieties ripened at much the same time producing a concentrated picking period of around ten days for most producers.

Opinion varies about the quality, but thanks to a warm, very dry period from late August right through until picking had finished, some producers see it as good to very good and vintage cuvées are likely to be made. In terms of quantity, the appellation limit of 10,500kgs/ ha will easily be met by most producers and many report they will also have the chance to build up their reserves, particularly depleted by the short harvest in 2012. Some expect to reach the maximum permitted extra 3,100kg/ha. As a result, given that sales of champagne in the main European markets are still fairly weak, especially in France, there should be little upward demand led pressure on prices. Grape prices are not however expected to fall.

Thanks to the late summer sunshine potential alcohol levels of 10.5deg or more were widely reached and there was little need for chaptalisation. Immediately prior to the harvest starting, acidity levels were very high, leading some to start drawing comparisons with the 1996 harvest, but in the very warm weather of early September when afternoon temperatures reached highs of 28-30degC, acidity levels dropped rapidly as the grapes ripened.

While there were some fears of rot, particularly in the Marne Valley which received close to twice the usual summer rainfall, bright clear days and north easterly winds kept botrytis at bay and those producers who decided to delay picking beyond the opening day announced for each individual cru benefitted from such a decision in many parts of the appellation.

Chardonnay seems to be the best performer generally with Pinot Noir also successful in the Montagne de Reims and in the most southerly part of the appellation, the Côte des Bar region to the south-east of Troyes. Pinot Meunier was more variable with the Marne Valley hit by rainfall, which was heavier the more westerly towards to Paris you go.

The free draining chalky soils of the Côte des Blancs were less adversely effected by the extra rainfall than the predominantly clay soils of the Marne Valley. However happily it remained almost completely dry throughout the concentrated period of harvesting during mid-September.

While high rainfall caused some problems, particularly in the Marne Valley as we have said, this area was also the worst hit by the pest drosophila suzukii, commonly known as the spotted wing drosophila. This is a type of fruit fly related to the common European vinegar fly, drosophila melanogaster which feeds on damaged berries, but far more worryingly one that attacks healthy fruit and has reportedly been an issue in parts of Bordeaux during the 2014 harvest too.

Any juice from grapes effected by this pest, which pieces the grape skin to lay its eggs, is turned to acetic acid and completely unusable. This may not be discovered during picking as the damage is not necessarily that obvious as the grapes looked relatively normal but the must is vinegar like and unusuable. It not only effected parts of the Marne Valley but also caused some problems in Montagne de Reims villages like Bouzy, Aÿ and Ambonnay. There was reportedly one very high profile casualty in Ambonnay and it is understood that Krug Clos d’Ambonnay will not be made in 2014.

To get a more in-depth report on the different conditions faced across the Champagne vineyards you can turn to my Detailed 2014 harvest report in the Trade Corner of the site in the next few days. This will have comments, mostly directly from the winemakers themselves, at a range of producers large and small spread across the appellation and gives some idea of the many regional variations.

Bolly magnums only in a few Waitrose stores

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.

Our tasting of 16 champagnes (+ 2 sparklers) all priced under £20

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.

Roederer launches Non-dosé Champagne

Philippe Starck, Frederick Rouzaud and Jean-Baptiste Lecaillon at the launch in Paris

Last night in Paris Louis Roederer unveiled its new cuvée, a 2006 vintage champagne without any dosage with the label designed by Philippe Starck. Unfortunately I haven’t had the chance to taste it yet but will on the 29th when Frédéric Rouzaud Roederer MD and Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon, Executive Vice President and Cellar Master, are coming to London to launch it here. Watch this space.

Abundant harvest looks to be high in quality

The Champagne harvest began in warm sunny conditions with temperatures on the first day (8 September) of picking around 28degC, according to Laurent Gillet, Président du Directoire at Groupe Vinicole Champagne Devaux a major player in the Côte des Bar region.

Speaking at the Liberty Wines tasting in London on 9 September, Gillet said: “While the weather has been up and down over the summer, the past two weeks immediately before the harvest have been very favourable and we have both quantity and outstanding quality. There has been a long period of maturing since flowering was completed in early June which is best for concentrating all the elements we need to provide good aromas and flavour in the grapes. It’s my 30^th vintage in Champagne and one of the best I’ve witnessed.”

Gillet had seen the first part of the harvest, Pinot Noir from the villages of Buxeuil and Neuville arrive in the winery at Bar-sur-Seine the previous day. “The grapes were very large weighing close to 150 grams with potential alcohol up over 10° degrees and acidity very high at 10-11gm/l, a bit like in 1996. So in some areas we are waiting to get better ripeness and this level of acidity will fall very quickly in the current extremely warm conditions which are expected to continue over the next few days.”

Gillet says growers can wait “four of five days beyond the official starting date for their village if they want to achieve better ripeness levels as there is no pressure from disease (botrytis)”. In terms of volume he expects the maximum permitted yield of 13,200kgs/ha (10,500kgs/ha less 400kgs/ha from the current reserve plus a maximum of 3,100kgs/ha that may be put into individual producers’ reserves) will easily be reached.

In nearby Les Riceys, the largest single cru in all Champagne and an important source of good Pinot Noir for many of the larger negociants (houses) where picking will start towards the end of the week (11-12 September), there is a big range in maturity on the differently exposed slopes with some already up between 10-11° degrees and other still under 9° degrees, says Gillet.

Champagne harvest begins

The Champagne harvest officially began today with the secateurs out in villages like the top premier cru of Cumières and other sites known for their early ripening. Among the early starters are Vitry-en-Perthos and several villages in the Côte des Bar region including Bligny, Urville, Ville-sur-Arce, Polisy, and Polisot.

Every village has a separate date on which producers can start picking each individual variety but many will hold off until optimum ripeness is achieved. The yield is expected to be considerable and the maximum yield agreed of 10,500 kilos per hectare plus 3,100kgs/ha for the reserve should easily be achieved in most parts of the appellation.

Tesco starts new price offensive

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.

Champagne sets 2014 yield to meet predicted demand

The basic yield in for the 2014 harvest was set at 10,500kilos per hectare by Champagne’s governing body the Comité interprofessionel du vin de Champagne (CIVC) which regulates champagne production at its meeting just before the August holiday break. This level of yield will to produce around 305.7m bottles of champagne. This is the volume of champagne the CIVC committee charged with analysing the market believes will be needed given the relatively high levels of stocks held by producers that amounts to nearly four years supply.

It is not a particularly optimistic assessment of the current situation which is partly based on the shipment figures for the first half of 2014 that show a very slight rise of 1.4% on the first half of 2013 to 110m bottles. But of course the majority of champagne sales are made in the second half of the year — particularly the last quarter — and predicting the level of demand in the run-up to the year end is always problematic. The MAT figure for the 12 months to the end of June 2014 helps a little, that is up 0.3% to 306.5m bottles on the same 12 months to the end of June 2013. But it is a still a difficult market to read.

The calculation about what a certain yield will produce is easy enough, you just need to know the current area of productive vineyard and that is 33,600 hectares. Because predicting consumption accurately is so difficult, the Champenois have devised a system by which they can make later adjustments to allow for fluctuations in demand by releasing more of the wine held in the Réserve to boost production.

This is quite a complicated system to explain. For 2014, in fact 400kgs/ha of the 10,500kgs/ha allowed will come out of the current reserves held and not the 2014 harvest. And if shipments look like rising above 307m bottles, the CIVC will raise this to 500kgs/ha. In addition vineyard owners can also put up to 3,100 kg/ha into their own reserve stocks, providing that reserve does not exceed the limit prescribed by regulations.