Giles Fallowfield is an award-winning journalist and a Champagne specialist who has been writing about the region for over two decades.
Released at a price premium well above ‘sister’ brand Dom Pérignon and produced in significantly smaller quantities, Moët & Chandon has launched its own ‘prestige cuvée’ named MC111. This wine has been a long time in the planning and harks back to Moët’s L’Esprit du Siècle – a blend of 11 top vintages of the 20th Century (1900, 1914, 1921, Continue reading “Moët launches prestige cuvée MC111”
Moët & Chandon has announced that tennis icon Roger Federer is to be the house’s new brand ambassador. Federer will take centre stage in Moet’s new advertising campaign when it starts in March. “Roger Federer personifies the glamour of achievement, great generosity and tremendous style values that have been key to our house throughout its long history,” says Stéphane Baschiera, Moet’s CEO. Moët has become an active sponsor in tennis over the past few months and is the official champagne of the ATP World Tour, the French Open, the Shanghai Masters and the US Open.
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.
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 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.
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.”
Moët and Chandon has confirmed that is will be putting the date of disgorgement on the back label its Grand Vintage 2004, both the white and rosé styles, due to be released in September this year. By the time the white wine is first launched it will have already had around 12 months post-disgorgement ageing on the cork as well as nearly seven on its lees, in keeping with the new policy of chef de cave Benoît Gouez to give these wines more time in the cellar post-disgorgement to build complexity.
The 2002 Grand Vintage was initially released in October 2010 and it was first disgorged in November 2009, so Gouez has actually slightly lengthened the post disgorgement ageing on the white style partly, “to help it recover from the oxidation trauma of the disgorgement process”. Moët Grand Vintage usually gets disgorged in three tranches spread over 18 months or so, depending on levels of demand, so by the time of the third release it has had nearly eight years on its lees. The 2004 rosé vintage style, where Gouez is trying to preserve freshness more, was disgorged in February 2012.
Speaking at a tasting of older Moët releases at the Champagne Summit on February 28, Stanislas Rocoffort de Vinnière, Moët & Chandon brand ambassador, said: “Wine connoisseurs like to know when champagne was disgorged, as well as things like the blend and dosage”. He wouldn’t be drawn on whether such information might also appear of Moët Brut Impérial NV in the future. However, following Krug’s decision to give the disgorgement dates on all future release of its wines via its website (see News story below), this development has fuelled speculation that other brands within the LVMH camp, Ruinart and Veuve Clicquot, might follow suit.
It isn’t the first time Moët has put a disgorgement date on one of its wines, the second release in 2002 of its ‘trilogie des grands crus’, three single vineyard, single varietal wines made in the nineties (96 and 97 harvests) also bore such a date, but that range was scrapped after just two releases. Moët & Chandon Grand Vintage collection re-releases of older vintages have both a disgorgement date and details of the exact blend on the back label.
Moët & Chandon has released 11 six bottle cases of the vintage champagne it produced from 1911 vintage. There’s just one case in the UK at Harrods and it could be yours for £65,000, that’s a mere £10,833.33 a bottle. The first case, sold in Hong Kong in September fetched U$100,000 and another case is due to be auctioned for charity in New York at Christie’s sale of Fine & Rare Wines on November 19, 2011. I had the chance to taste this 100 year old vintage with Moët & Chandon Chef de Cave Benoît Gouez last week.
To get warmed up for the 1911 vintage we first taste the current release of Moët Grand Vintage 2002, followed by the 1992 and 1990 vintages. This selection is not random, as with the past few vintage launches from Moët (see below), they like to show a few wines from their extensive library selection that the winemaking team headed up by Gouez view as similar in style. The launches of 2003, 2002 and 2000 vintages have given me the opportunity to taste some fantastic old wines. This time round we are doing it the other way and trying to find some younger wines that might develop like the 1911 vintage has.
While the blend for Moët vintage has never been rigid, today Gouez has great flexibility in choosing the blend of varieties that he sees as offering the most interesting most and characterful expression of the vintage. The 2002 blend is 51% Chardonnay, 26% Pinot Noir and 23% Pinot Meunier; the 1992 is 45% each of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir with 10% Meunier while the 1990 is made up from 50% Pinot Noir, 40% Chardonnay and 10% Pinot Meunier which Gouez describes as the classic Moët recipe of the 50’s.
What they have in common is a certain richness and ripeness of fruit and while ’92 would not be seen by many as in the same class as the very highly rated ’02 and 1990 vintages it is at a very attractive stage in its development showing a toasty character with a distinctive pronounced mocha note and lovely palate richness. But these three wines were very much the warm up to the main event, the 1911.
The blend for the 1911 is unknown, says Gouez but likely to be mostly Chardonnay and Pinot Noir and there’s no Pinot Meunier in it, but perhaps, he suggests, it includes some Pinot Blanc. There’s little information about it in the archives merely that it was a very small harvest at a very good level, a year to remember. It was all fermented in small oak casks as was customary at that time. The 1,500 bottles of 1911 that were left in Moet’s cellars were in one pile, completely untouched and Gouez said when he sorted through them he found many that were broken or had little or no wine left in them. “To get 150 good bottles I had to use 1,000. Some were empty and most were oxidized while quite a few had a too powerful mushroom taste. There are 500 left undisgorged that I might get a further 50 from.”
The wine was given a dosage of 7gm/l and all the bottles disgorged in January 2011. On pouring the first thing to note is the colour, an attractive pale gold, not a brown sherry-like liquid you might expect after 100 years ageing. The nose is a mix of crystallized fruit with a distinctive panettone bread character. It is not very fizzy with about 1bar of pressure (as opposed to champagne usual 6) but you can see a distinct fine bead of very small bubbles and it certainly isn’t without life and energy. The palate is rich with a savoury umami note, there is a mild attractive mushroom taste and the richness just holds there hardly fading at all in a very long finish.
2002: 1992, 1982, 1975, 1964
2003: 1995, 1990, 1976, 1959
2000: 1988, 1982, 1962, 1952 Dry and Le Mesnil 1900, also tasted 1996, 1961 and 1921 on a separate occasion as we were in Epernay.
Although it has been widely reported as the ‘earliest’ harvest since 1822 when grape picking began on August 20, in reality it looks like that honour is still retained by 2003 when after the heat wave summer – we certainly didn’t have that this year — growers in the Côte des Bar village of Bligny began cutting grapes on August 18. It wasn’t a tiny, very ripe harvest either. In 2003 over 12 degrees potential alcohol was common place where as in 2011 some pickers were sent home after they had started when it was realised grapes were not as mature as expected.
For the 2011 harvest the earliest official date for picking was on August 20 for black grapes (both Pinots) in Neuville-sur-Seine and Buxeuil in the southernmost Côte des Bar region, but also for Pinot Meunier in Damery and Cumières, two premier cru villages on the north side of the Marne Valley.
There are even a few people who suggest the very early dates fixed by the CIVC were set too early in some instances and that this decision was partly influenced by the worry that as stocks in the old and new resérve individuelle could in theory build up to as high as 10,000kgs/ha, too much of this material would be based on the relatively ripe recent vintages and lack freshness.
This was certainly an unusual year with a number of firsts. Although the season started exceptionally early with flowering three weeks ahead of usual in the last week of May, after cool weather through June and July, ripeness levels were not near the heights of 2003, when spring frosts had also massively reduced the size of the crop further concentrating the juice.
In mid-August just before harvesting was due to start the speed of ripening did not take place at the expected pace and in a number of instances picking was actually halted. As Moët & Chandon chef de cave Benoît Gouez reports: “We stopped the harvest for a few days in the Côte des Blancs and sent 650 pickers home, something that has never happened in Champagne before in my experience.”
Unusually too Pinot Meunier was picked first by many producers, partly because of fears that if there was further rain this variety, already in a fragile state, would be ruined by botrytis. In general changeable weather conditions just before and during the harvest, plus varying ripeness levels even within the same vineyard made it a difficult harvest to manage. However most producers we spoke to are pleased with the quality they have finished with and nearly all see it as significantly superior to 2010. Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are generally the best varieties with some making the comparison with the classic balance of the 1995 vintage.
For a detailed 2011 harvest report with comments from over 20 winemakers and CEOs from across the region see Trade Corner where you will also find past reports for the previous decade.