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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.

UK 2013 champagne shipments drop by 5.13%

Champagne shipments were down just 1.53% in 2013 to 303,870,438 bottles, according to figures just released by the CIVC, Champagne’s governing body. The French domestic market was down by 2.43% to 167,093,159 bottles but total export shipments only fell 0.42% to 136,776,979 bottles. Shipments to the UK market were down by 5.13% to 30,786,727 bottles, dropping from 32,445,352 in 2012, the lowest level they have been at, bar 2009 when the financial slump hit sales, since 2001.

The UK is still by far the most significant export market in terms of volume, shipments to the number two market the USA which rose by just 0.93% are still over 12.9m bottles lower. In general, as expected, it is the mature European markets that fared worse with Germany and Spain down 1.57 and 1.92% respectively and Italy falling back further again – by 14.18% to 5,359,536 bottles, after a drop of over 18% in 2012. Belgium bucks the European trend with a 14.15% rise to 9,525,304 bottles.

Outside Europe the market for champagne in Japan and Australia remains buoyant with shipments to the latter, the sixth most important export market now, up 11.4% following on from 11.2% growth in 2012 and a 31.9% spurt in 2011. The Japanese market also continued to grow with shipments up 6.75% to 9,674,446 bottles.

In terms of value because of the higher average bottle price — consumers there favour more expensive rosé champagne and prestige cuvées — Japan may well have overtaken Germany as the third most important export market in terms of value. Those detailed figures are not available yet but with average shipment prices at €19.19 in Japan versus Germany’s €14.83 in 2012, the gap in terms of Euros between the two was less than €14m though over 3.5m more bottles went to Germany.

You can see why the Champenois like the Japanese market and that’s the reason Perrier-Jouët has just chosen to launch its new 2007 Belle Époque Edition Première there (a wine I tasted with winemaker Hervé Deschamps last Thursday in London of which more soon) in time for the Spring blossom. A few years ago Veuve Clicquot launched its non-vintage rosé in the Japanese market before releasing it anywhere else and the PJ has hint of pink from macerated Pinot Noir.

The feeling that the biggest houses are concentrating their efforts on the emerging markets like the BRIC countries and that this is where the growth is all going to come from in the short term took a blow. Shipments to China were down 18.35%, exports to Russia only up 4%, Brazil fell 0.46% and while India was up 5.36% shipments there still only reached a paltry 367,020 bottles.

When I spoke to Moët’s CEO Stéphane Baschiera on the telephone last month he mentioned that Mexico was a ‘priority market’ for the largest champagne brand. Perhaps therefore unsurprisingly the highest percentage growth achieved by any top 30 countries came in Mexico where shipments rose 31.18% to 1,137,845 bottles. That’s more than India and Brazil put together, though sitting together in 15^th and 16^th position in the top 30, China and Russia are still slightly larger at 1.63m and 1.54m bottles respectively. Shipments to the UK are however still more than five times larger than all five of these markets put together.

Growers’ pinks offer great value

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.

The scores:

R&L Legras Brut Rosé, 93/100 pts (AR); 94/100 (GF), £39.95 Berry Bros & Rudd www.bbr.com
Philipponnat Brut Reserve Rosée, 92/100 (AR); 93/100 (GF), Les Caves de Pyrene, rrp £44.99, half bottles Selfridges £26.
Billecart-Salmon Brut Rosé, 91/100 (AR), 90/100 (GF), widely stocked in independents, rrp £60
Fleury Rosé de Saignée Brut (Biodynamic, Ecocert certified) 91/100 (AR); 90/100 (GF), Vintage Roots: http://www.vintageroots.co.uk/ £34.50 a bottle, £19.50 a half bottle
Drappier Val des Demoiselles Brut Rosé, 91/100 (AR); 92/100 (GF), Markinch Wine Gallery (Scotland), Ruby Red Wine Cellars.
Benoît Marguet Berry’s United Kingdom Cuvée Rosé Grand Cru Brut NV, 90+/100 (AR); 92/100 (GF), £29.95 Berry Bros & Rudd www.bbr.com
De Sousa Brut Rosé, 90/100 (AR); 88/100 (GF), £42 Berry Bros & Rudd www.bbr.com
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

My Champagne book launched in the USA

My pocket sized book on Champagne, has just been published in the USA by Princeton Architectural Press in their ‘Instant Expert’ series. Originally it was brought out at the end of 2012 by Hardie Grant (in the UK and Australia) and by Sueddeutsche Zeitung, in Germany, all under the series title, Le Snob. The layout and look of the revised book is pretty much the same while the series title is arguably an improvement. I’m hoping to get some good feedback from readers (and reviewers?) in the US via my website and twitter (ChampagneGuruUK).

Princeton wanted it to come out just before Valentine’s Day to take advantage of the expected surge in consumer interest in fizz. I’m not sure if they go as mad for rosé styles at this time of year as we do, but the USA was the second most important export market for pink champagne after the UK in 2012 (barely less than 100,000 bottles fewer) and once the detailed figures for 2013 are published next month, may have over taken us as the first pink market.

With this in mind I’m going to pick out a few more pink hued fizzes I favoured in the book and add them shortly to the top ten rosés already on the website.

You can get the new edition on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Champagne-Instant-Expert-Giles-Fallowfield/dp/1616892412

My top ten pink champagnes (mostly not sold in supermarkets)

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 14^th.

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 11^th 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.