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Is Champagne losing its kudos, its pulling power?

Although Champagne prices for the major brands continue to increase, reflecting the fact that grape prices in the region have risen continuously over the past two decades between the 1993 and 2013 harvests, UK supermarkets continued to sell some champagne around the £10 mark at the year-end. Why? Clearly they can’t be making any margin selling fizz at this price. It is simply to pull in the punters.

The owners of the big houses worry that selling this very cheap champagne may be damaging the generic image of Champagne and it may also be making it harder for them to sell their international brands at £30 to £35 a bottle or more – several are now over £40 rrp. As Michel Letter the boss at G.H.Mumm at Perrier-Jouët said recently: “With discounts as large as this the consumer might think that something is wrong with the wine and I am afraid of this. You can have champagne selling at two different prices with one that is twice as expensive, giving the explanation that the grapes are sourced from grand cru vineyards or the wine is aged longer, but three times higher starts to be too big a difference.”

But newspaper columnists still like to use champagne as a symbol of extravagance, luxury and celebration and as a gauge of economic well-being, sometimes working it into the most unlikely stories. Under the heading: ‘Champagne flows as house owners see surge in prices’ The Times newspaper ran a story last Saturday (18 January) saying house owners might want to break out the champagne as their properties were now worth £28,000 more on average than they were in January 2013, or £27,991 to be exact. The writer, Deidre Hipwell, clearly a lover of pink fizz, noted this was the equivalent of 560 bottles of gift bottles of Bollinger Rosé at £49.99 a pop.

It seems despite the aggressive pricing of supermarkets in the UK, mirroring what has been happening in France over the past three or four months, brand Champagne is retaining its cachet, its unique position as the drink of celebration. But the fear is this ‘two-tier’ market may cause damage in the longer term.

Champagne shipments fall to 304m bottles but value in line with 2012

Champagne shipments in 2013 fell back by 1.5% to 304m bottles, “a satisfactory result in a difficult economic environment in Champagne’s main European markets,” says the Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne (CIVC) in a statement accompanying the estimated figures, which were released over a month earlier than usual this year. This volume is nearly 5m down on 2012 and nearly 19m below the 2011 figure of 322.95m bottles but while shipments to both the French domestic market and Europe outside France are down by 2.3 and 3.4% respectively, shipments to countries outside Europe reached a new record level of 63m bottles, up another 3.2% on the 2012 figure.

The markets outside Europe now account for only 11m fewer bottles than Europe, the closest the two have been and in value terms they are neck and neck. Countries outside Europe, a group still dominated by the USA and Japan, respectively the second and fourth ranked export markets for champagne in terms of volume, now account for over 25% of total shipments in value terms and just over 20% in volume. In fact while Japan was still 3.5m bottles smaller than Germany in volume terms in 2012 (12.5m vs 9m bottles), as a very high value market where average bottle price was €19.10 versus Germany’s €14.8 in 2012, in overall value terms Japan is now very close to Germany with shipments there in 2012 worth €173.64m against shipments to Germany of €186.22m.

In 2012 average shipment prices in the three areas were:
France: €12.44 a bottle
Europe: €14.96 a bottle
Outside Europe: €18.18 a bottle

The overall year-end shipment figures in 2013 are better than was expected after a difficult November when shipments were down 13.5% in Europe compared with November 2012 and the total figure looked like being under 300m bottles. A general recovery in December saw shipments increase to around 42m bottles, an 8% rise on December 2012. Total value of shipments for 2013 was only fractionally down on 2012 at around €4.3bn.

Merchant January sales have attractive deals

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.

Magnums best for the New Year parties

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.

Leclerc & Carrefour slug it out in French champagne price war

A price war between supermarkets using champagne as their weapon of choice has broken out the other side of The Channel, shadowing developments in the UK where prices have fallen steadily since mid-October. Two of the major French supermarket groups, Leclerc and Carrefour have both been running promotions on champagne which have seen the price of Paul Francois Vranken’s Premier Cru fall to just €7.78 a bottle in Carrefour earlier this week. The Leclerc group has retaliated with a €8.45 price on GH Martel which runs from 6 to 16^th November.

“With discounts as large as this the consumer might think that something is wrong with the wine and I am afraid of this,” commented Michel Letter head of GH Mumm and Perrier-Jouët. “The price of the Vranken champagne [in Carrefour] is below cost, it’s not his [Vranken’s] fault but the supermarket which has set the price, but the consumer doesn’t know that.”

In France retailers are not allowed to sell products like champagne at under cost but just as UK supermarkets get round the restrictions on advertising ‘half-price deals’ which are not really genuine (they have to list the product in question for 28 days at the so-called full retail price prior to offering it at ‘half-price’) the French grocers get round restrictions by giving customers large discounts on their loyalty cards. The GH Martel discount comes via a 50% reduction on the Leclerc loyalty card, while in the Vranken Premier Cru deal where the price has dropped from €25.95 a bottle, Carrefour is giving its loyalty card holders a massive 70%, or €18.17 a bottle discount.

“The price is nearly cheaper than Prosecco,” added Letter. “When they see this, consumers may think, ‘is it really Champagne’? Something must be wrong with it at this price. It is not the producer but the supermarkets doing it, trying to attract customers. They don’t care about the effect, but in the long term Champagne’s image will be damaged,” he says.

Using champagne to drive footfall in retailers is not just a European phenomenon, Letter notes. Just back from the Melbourne Cup in Australia which GH Mumm sponsors he says he saw “Moët selling for A$24.7 [€17.7] at Dan Murphy’s liquor store, that’s below cost”.

“You can have champagne selling at two different prices with one that is twice as expensive, giving the explanation that the grapes are sourced from grands crus vineyards or the wine is aged longer, but three times higher starts to be too big a difference. There is a danger that consumers won’t understand the reason for the difference.”

“The objective of such promotional offers are, from the retailer’s perspective, to drive an increased traffic to their stores thanks to a special price offer on an iconic product. However, such prices disturb the consumer’s set of references, and are not good for the image of Champagne,” says Thibaut Le Mailloux, communications director at the CIVC, Champagne’s governing body.

Prices of champagne in French supermarkets have been gradually falling over the past few weeks with Georges Cartier offered for €9.35 a bottle at the end of October; and Charles Lafitte (a brand owned by Vranken) priced at €12.50 in a BOGOF deal a week earlier at Carrefour. While Heidsieck & Co Monopole (another brand that’s owned by Vranken and sold in UK supermarkets) was priced at €13,50 a bottle in Carrefour at the start of October.

Ayala 2002 close to delicious peak

Yesterday my eldest son finished his IB exams and I had a look for something suitable to open in celebration. After a good deal of indecision, I eventually plumped for a bottle of Ayala 2002, partly on the basis that was the year when he started at the school at the age of seven. The Ayala wines under Hervé Augustin’s reign there as MD all have disgorgement dates on the back label, something he instigated that I thoroughly approve of. Unfortunately on this particular bottle the space for this date is empty (see photograph). However I reckon it’s been in my cellar at least 12 months.

Probably the best vintage of the past decade (though ’04 is shaping up very well) , a lot of 2002s are I believe still a long way off their best, so I was hoping we wouldn’t regret opening this as it’s the only bottle I have. We didn’t, it was absolutely gorgeous. A glorious deep golden colour it was at or near a delicious peak with developed aromas of honey and toast plus a sumptuous creamy texture. It’s a wine of impressive intensity without being at all heavy. With the blend made from 80% Pinot Noir sourced in Aÿ and Mareuil-sur-Aÿ set against top class Grand Cru Chardonnay from Mesnil-sur-Oger, Cramant and Chouilly it certainly has impeccable breeding.

I have tried many fine 2002s and it’s a vintage I look forward to returning to over the next ten years or more (I’m still reluctant to drink ‘88s), but this was probably the single bottle of ’02 that I have enjoyed most. I am glad to report it is still available too at Champagne Direct online (£42.95) and vintagewinegifts (£54.97 in wooden box with accessories).

On a separate but connected note, at the last Waitrose tasting when their pre-Christmas champagne selection was looking very lacklustre, the Ayala Brut Majeur NV was the only fizz offering any excitement in the line-up. It will be interesting to see if their tasting tomorrow has any champagne highlights.

Bollinger War vintages

When I came into the office for the first time last week there was a message on my ansafone from a ChampagneGuru visitor, asking if I could help evaluate or provide any information about a very old bottle of vintage Bollinger from the war years. Intriguing I thought, knowing there were several fine vintages between 1939 and 1945, some picked while the front line was very close to Reims.

Bollinger actually made three: 1941, Madame Lily Bollinger’s first vintage that produced wines that were ‘powerful and balanced’; 1943 – ‘a difficult year for an exceptional result’ with very concentrated wines; and finally 1945: ‘Solid wines that later proved to be a great vintage, powerful and able to be kept for a long time’.

Sadly I haven’t tasted any of these three and I don’t even know if they have bottles left in the cellars in Aÿ, though I suspect they do. I have tasted other wines from the 40s including Veuve Clicquot’s, but the oldest Bollinger I have a record of trying is 1979 RD a few years back. When I called back I discovered the wine in question was in fact the ’43 and we are now trying to find out its rarity, condition and thus its ‘value’. A quick look on Wine Searcher gives an average price for this wine of £798 ex tax per bottle and reveals four places, all in Germany, still offering the wine, although three of them only have half bottles.

In fact all four of them only have half bottles as I discovered when I emailed them (they do have 1941 and 1949 Bollinger in 75cl bottles though). So it is over to Bollinger to see if they still have any bottles of 1943 left.

Interview: Veuve Clicquot President & CEO Jean Marc Lacave

VCPresJeanMarcLacaveIMG_1951 — Jean-Marc Lacave

Harpers: 3 May 2013 (TBC): Veuve Clicquot President & CEO Jean Marc Lacave

Veuve Clicquot’s President and CEO Jean Marc Lacave says: “We need a relevant new message and the link between wine and gastronomy is an obvious one.” He was speaking at a special lunch in Reims to mark the launch of a new collaboration between the brand and renowned French chef Joël Robuchon. “We like the idea of matching the creativity of a great chef like Joël with that of our chef de cave, Dominique Demarville.”

This interview with Jean Marc Lacave appeared in Harpers 3 May issue, click here to read it: Veuve Clicquot CEO Interview Harpers 3 May 2013

Europe not ‘tomorrow’s market’ for Champagne

New president of the Union des Maisons de Champagne (UMC) Jean-Marie Barillère says that export markets like the UK are “not where growth will be found tomorrow and the houses must anticipate this change by investing in distant markets, especially in America and Asia. It is a long-term job, requiring considerable human and financial resources,” he says.

Speaking as he takes over from Ghislain de Montgolfier, with whom he has worked as UMC vice-president since 2007, Barillère says : « In terms of markets, Champagne must undergo a profound transformation. France, England, Germany and Europe in general, which accounted for 80% of champagne shipments in the past, are not tomorrow’s growth markets.”

“In 2013 and the following years the challenges are well known. We must adapt to changing circumstances revising the Champagne model to create more value. Champagne has had several decades of growth but mainly in volume terms, while there has been little increase in value. This growth model cannot be pursued any longer because of the appellation rules, production and yield restrictions [the currently defined vineyard area is more than 95% planted]. We cannot double the production of grapes in the next twenty years.”

“Champagne must adopt another growth model, one based on creating value. Easy to say but hard to achieve as such a policy requires lots of different skills. Fortunately in Champagne we have the people with exactly the right skill set in our ‘grandes maisons’.

Barillère has given up his position in charge of Moët Hennessy Champagne Services, the administrative arm of Champagne’s largest player that buys grapes for all the groups’ brands, to « separate the two functions in the interests of transparency », but his views that priority markets are outside Europe reflect those of Moët Hennessy’s managers.

The detailed year-end figures from the Comité Interprofessionnel du vin de Champagne (CIVC) show that in 2012 countries outside Europe accounted for 19.74% (60.95m bottles) of total champagne shipments, the highest level since 2007 when they took 17.5% of shipments (59.44m bottles). The most important market outside Europe remains the USA. Although shipments there fell 8.7% in 2012 to 17.69m bottles, value of just over €371m gives an average bottle price of €20.98, the highest among the top ten. The only top ten export markets in growth are Japan, up 13.8% to 9.06m bottles and Australia which rose by a hardly less impressive 11.2% to 5.4m bottles.

Shipments to Japan have risen over two and a half times over the past ten years while value has risen in the same period from €80.74m to €173.64m less than €15m behind Germany, although 3.5m more bottles were shipped there in 2012. After the USA, Japan and Italy remain the two top ten markets with the highest average bottle price at €19.16 and €19.11 respectively, but volume in Italy fell back 18.4% to 6.25m bottles in 2012.

Growth in the Chinese market where shipments rose 19.4% in 2011 accelerated jumping 51.8% to cross the 2m bottle mark, although the average price at €13.85 is lower than the price in the UK which is €14.5 a bottle. India rose 20% to 348,358 bottles, while Russia grew by 10.3% to 1.48m bottles, but Brazilian shipments dropped slightly by 6.7% to 980,378 bottles.

Robuchon lunch produces magical combinations

My guess we would be looking at matching Robuchon’s food with something from Veuve Clicquot’s Cave Privée range like the 1989 Rosé wasn’t far off the mark. In fact when I spoke to the celebrated chef later on in the afternoon he mentioned how well that lovely mature, Burgundian-like rosé went with pigeon. At this extraordinary lunch we actually had its white partner the 1990 vintage partnered with quail, caramelised foie gras and Robuchon’s famed pomme purée truffée (see the full menu below).

For me the day started with an interview with Clicquot’s relatively new (one year in the job) President and CEO Jean Marc Lacave (Veuve Clicquot CEO Interview Harpers 3 May 2013) before joining the small group of international journalists over a glass of La Grande Dame 2004. Lacave explained that under the new tie up, Yellow Label and Rosé in magnum will be the House pour at all Joël Robuchon’s restaurants round the world with Vintage 2004, Vintage Rosé 2004, La Grande Dame 2004 – white and rosé — all listed.

Lacave is keen to bring attention back on Clicquot’s flagship Yellow Label Brut, a wine that has also been a focus for chef de cave Dominique Demarville, pointing out it had rarely been served to guests of the house at Hotel du Marc over recent years.

As if to underline the point the first two lunch dishes were paired with Yellow Label and non-vintage rosé both served in magnum, Demarville setting us the not too onerous task of deciding the style that matched the caviar best and which we preferred with the langoustine. Contrary to expectations, his and ours, it was pretty well unanimous to marry the rosé with the caviar, as the combination seemed to enhance both wine and food. While the Yellow Label, showing good freshness, depth and structure, helped by serving it in the big glasses (see picture) also favoured by Dom Pérignon winemaker Richard Geoffroy, rose to the challenge of the perfectly cylindrical turban of spaghetti, standing up well to the rich langoustine sauce (see photograph).

The Clicquot 2004 was in 75cl bottles not magnums, Demarville quick to point out that the magnums of this wine are still too fresh for the dish. Already showing developed secondary aromas on first release last year this wine has opened up even more and is a lovely example of this fine vintage, a big, powerful, full flavoured wine, quite a contrast to the La Grande Dame 2004 that preceded it, a theme I shall return to. The strong trufflely flavours and textural creaminess of the Zephyr au Fromage needed such a rich, aromatic, Pinot Noir dominant fizz.

The climax of the meal, vinous and gastronomic, was the quail and the 1990 Cave Privée with the wine close to its peak of complexity and the chef matching its many nuances of flavour and texture on the plate. The 1990 was also at least a good match with the cheese –Comté and mature vintage champagne is a brilliant combination – as the charming classical Château Lynch Bages 1988. But as Demarville explained the red was there “to have a change before we go to the sugar”.

Two puddings was really a step too far, but given I knew Robuchon himself was in the kitchen, an experience not likely to be repeated, like everyone else round the table I ate both. To accompany them we moved to a demi-sec with a 45g/l dosage which Demarville gently pours into a baccarat decanter before serving. “Why? For three reasons,” he explains, “firstly, because it looks beautiful. Secondly because with the demi-sec it will actually make the flavour of the wine even more intense, showing pineapple, mango and exotic fruit flavours and the bubbles will be gentler as a result. The third reason is historical, before Madame Clicquot invented riddling in 1816 the wine was shipped with the sediment still in the bottle and it had to be decanted when served.”

The Robuchon menu at Veuve Clicquot’s Hotel du Marc

Pour commencer: Le parmesan crémeux en cappuccino au vieux porto La Grande Dame 2004

Le Caviar Impérial: en fine gelée au parfum de corail servi en surprise Carte Jaune and Rosé en magnum

La Langoustine: en turban de spaghetti avec une emulsion coralline Carte Jaune and Rosé en magnum

Le Zephyr au Fromage: compris sensual entre soufflé et crème renversée
au coulis de truffes Vintage 2004 (75cl bottle)

Le Caille caramélisée au foie gras avec une pomme purée trufée Cave Privée
1990 en magnum

Les fromages: fermier, frais et affinés Château Lynch Bages 1988

Le Rubis: crême de cheese cake au citron vert, coeur coulant de fruits noirs Demi-Sec carafé

La Fleur Caramel: aux saveurs exotiques, craquant honey candy Demi-Sec carafé

Le Fin Moka: escorté de “bonbons au chocolat”