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Clicquot combines with Robuchon

If you wanted any current Michelin-starred French chef to cook lunch for you In London, Paris or further afield, one name is more likely to come up than any other — Joël Robuchon. He currently holds 26 Michelin stars in his various restaurants around the world. And if you were looking for a vinous style of vintage champagne, Veuve Clicquot’s, particularly something from the Cave Privée range like the 1989 rosé, would be a fine choice to match with his dishes. La Grande Dame, white or pink, might also make for some interesting food and wine combinations.

So tomorrow’s lunch at Clicquot’s recently refurbished Hotel du Marc in Reims, where Robuchon himself is at the stove trying out suitable combinations, is a mouth-watering prospect. Hope to tell you more about it after the event, a special lunch to celebrate a new link-up between the two celebrated brands.

 

Administrator tries to sell off Pressoirs de France assets

It now looks certain that the Pressoirs de France Champagne négociant business based in Faverolles-et-Coëmy to the west of Reims will be broken up and the main asset, the vineyards, sold off to the highest bidder. Having failed to sell the business as a going concern, the l’administrateur judiciaire (administrator) Jean-Luc Mercier, appointed by the French courts on 8 January (see Decanter.com 14 January 2013), has launched a tender calling for bids for the company’s two main sellable assets.

He has listed these as the vineyards it owns, some 10.67 hectares of vines which have an estimated value of somewhere between €11 and €15m, plus the 165 hectares of supply contracts the company has, which include 84 hectares where the contract has a further four years to run.

While vineyard land in Champagne certainly regularly fetches in excess of €1m per hectare, there is some debate about the value of the supply contracts however. With growers paid in four tranches for their grapes, the second payment for the 2012 crop is due today 5th March and Jean-Luc Mercier the administrator has warned suppliers that this payment mounting to €2.5m will not be met by the deadline. In the wake of past scandals like the Bricout affair contracts are now more carefully drafted and may well be nullified if payment is not made on time, making them worthless to any potential buyer.

Despite these developments, owner of the Pressoirs de France group Nicolas Dubois still says he is optimistic about rescuing the business, which may further deter buyers interested in the supply contracts. The vineyards should certainly attract interest from the most profitable groups in Champagne like LVMH which has been actively buying up land under vine. While others like Pernod-Ricard can afford it, boss Michel Letter is on record as saying : “We prefer to build strong relationships with growers and find extra supplies that way there is no need to buy.”

Champagne deals flow over Easter

It was Easter in 2000 when the whole idea of slashing Champagne prices during key trading periods was started by Sainsbury’s, partly to get rid of unsold ‘Millennium’ stock. Fast forward 13 years and it is still happening, though the major international brands whose prices have all gone up recently, have mostly avoided the deep discounting. But Easter looks like bringing some great deals out and Sainsbury’s has cut its price of Bollinger Special Cuvée to just £25 a bottle until 2nd April while Tesco is giving 25% off six bottle purchases. See the Latest Retail Offers page.

Champagne shipments drop by around 3%

Champagne shipments are expected to fall by around 3% to between 312 and 314m bottles in 2012, back to the level of 2005/6, after a poor November saw sales drop between 6 and 7% on the same month in 2011. Last year, when 42m bottles were sold in December it was the lowest figure for that month since 2004, says Michel Letter, managing director of GH Mumm and  Perrier-Jouët at Pernod Ricard. “If we do the same this December, that will  make 312m bottles for the whole year.”

With “a lot of promotion on the French market recently” where prices in hypermarkets have regularly dropped below €10 a bottle, he expects that level at least to be reached. “This compares with 323m bottles last year,” says Letter “and while a lot of people will complain, it only takes us back to the shipment level in 2005/6 and is not too bad [given the widespread economic recession]. The problem is we have no idea of how things will develop next year making forecasting difficult.

“The French economy is not likely to recover next year and while the US and Asia are doing well, with a 1% downturn in France [where 56% of all champagne sales were made last year] you need a 10% increase in Asia to compensate. The difficult markets are in Old Europe where France, down 4.9% to the end of October, the UK, Spain and Italy have all fallen. All the growth for the category is coming in markets outside Europe with Japan, Australia and China all doing well,” says Letter.

“For the second year running Japan, where exports were up 26% in the first half year, has been our leading market for Belle Epoch [Perrier-Jouët’s prestige cuvée]. In Australia, where shipments were up 16.2% in the first half, we have also done very well, partly because of the Pernod Ricard wine connection and through taking over [from Moët] sponsorship of the Melbourne Cup.”

Interview: Michel Letter, DG of G.H. Mumm & Perrier-Jouët at Pernod Ricard

The Drinks Business February 2013:

An outside opinion: Michel Letter was critical of the Champenois when he arrived in the region back in 2006 saying they didn’t always seem to apply logic to the decision making process. Seven years on and he has been accepted by the Champenois as one of their own but his different background has enabled him to bring a new approach to the region and how the houses of GH Mumm and Perrier-Jouët are run.

Read the full interview here.

Dom Pérignon 2002 rosé launch

Chef de Cave Richard Geoffroy is pictured at the Dom Pérignon Rosé 2002 launch in London at Leighton House Museum

Richard Geoffroy, chef de cave at Dom Pérignon is not a believer in pink champagne that can’t be distinguished from its white counterpart with your eyes closed. “If it doesn’t taste different, what’s the point in making a rosé?” he said at the launch of 2000 pink DP a couple of years back. At that event, the first ever oenothéque DP Rosé from the stunning 1990 vintage was also released, somewhat overshadowing its decade younger sibling.

This time round in 2013 with the simultaneous release of the 1993 oenothéque DP rosé alongside the new ‘02, one could say roles are reversed. While 2002 is the most widely produced top class vintage since 1995, ’93 wasn’t much of a year for vintage champagne. But again it is the wine with that extra decade in bottle which stands out now and it is tempting to say: ‘What’s the point of drinking Dom Pérignon Rosé without at least two decades ageing?’ Let’s hope Geoffroy can persuade the accountants at LVMH to keep more DP stock back, so we can. We understand he would like to.

Champagne discounting takes break as most big deals end

Champagne prices have gone back to what passes for normal as the frantic Christmas and New Year activity susbsides. But if you only buy discounted fizz, don’t worry, as a new pack of deals will soon emerge for Valentine’s and Mothers’ Day with pink offerings to the fore.

For the best current deals see the Retail Offers page

Champagne négociant Pressoirs de France goes into receivership

One of the main players trading in sur lattes Champagne that supplies major UK supermarkets including Tesco, Waitrose and Morrisons has gone bust. After weeks of speculation that is was in financial difficulties, the Pressoirs de France group owned and run by Nicolas Dubois has gone into receivership having failed to find a new financial backer. In a statement to the French press on Wednesday, Dubois said the company was « without sufficient capital to fund its cash needs ».

Dubois, who started his brokering business in 1999, quickly become a large operator predominantly selling cheap champagne to hypermarkets and supermarkets inside and outside France. His group sold 6m bottles of champagne in 2012, he told French newspaper l’Union. He made it clear that the majority of this was bought on the sur lattes market from other producers in Champagne when he confirmed that he had purchased €160m worth of champagne in the sur lattes market in just four years. Working on an average sur lattes price of between €6.5-7 over this period that’s in excess of 22m bottles of champagne.  

According to rumours circulating widely in Champagne, Dubois had recently pre-sold clients large volumes of champagne at just €8 a bottle, banking on the sur lattes price dropping in the current difficult economic climate to make these deals profitable. However, the  sur lattes price has actually risen slightly to just over €7 and when you add in the cost of about €1.20 per bottle for disgorgment, it’s hard to see how this bit of business could possibly have been profitable, which may have triggered Pressoirs de France’s financial collapse.

It was Dubois who supplied the Laurence D brand promoted in Leclerc supermarkets last September at just €5.45 in a loyalty card deal. The Pressoirs de France group also supplies Tesco with its Francois Dubois label; Morrisons with its Louis Dubrince champagnes and Waitrose with  Bertrand de Bessac all of which have been heavily promoted at under £15 in the UK in the run-up to Christmas.

The administrator appointed by the French court on 8 January is trying to save jobs at Pressoirs de France’s operation based in based in Faverolles & Coëmy 10kms to the west of Reims. According to reports in the French press the business has total liabilities of €49m including €30m of bank debt but its assets include 40 hectares of supply contracts bought with the Jeeper brand (also sold by Tesco on-line) by Dubois in November 2009, plus other supply contracts and the equivalent of €25m of unsold stock.

Augustin and Leroux in new positions post Bollinger

Two former top Bollinger managers, well known to the UK champagne trade, have started new export orientated jobs. Hervé Augustin, previously Bollinger MD, whose ‘resignation’ as President of Ayala last September surprised many industry observers, has joined Champagne De Castelnau at the Reims-based CRVC co-operative as their export director. And earlier this month, Stephen Leroux, former sales and marketing director at Bollinger, who briefly worked last year on the export side at Louis Roederer, joined the EPI management team under MD Robert Remnant, specifically working on the Charles Heidsieck brand.

Augustin oversaw a complete restoration of Ayala’s fortunes and image moving over from managing Bollinger after the family bought the ailing house in January 2005. The CRVC MD Pascal Prudhomme says Augustin will help them achieve their objective of « reaching sales of 500,000 bottles for the De Castelnau barand by 2016, its 100th anniversary, with 50% sold outside France”. Aged 62, Augustin’s career in Champagne, which spans 37 years, began at Laurent-Perrier working with his uncle Bernard de Nonancourt.

The appointment of Leroux on the Charles Heidsieck brand shows EPI’s determination to build a talented management team capable of restoring this famous marque’s image, positioning it in the same territory as brands like Roederer and Bollinger.

Best current buys

As usual at this time of year the supermarkets are desperately trying to attract more customers into their stores and once again ‘cheap’ champagne is one of the instruments they are using to do this. So far we have seen prices fall to as low as £6, albeit only briefly with some de-listed stock at ASDA while Tesco on-line (De Vallois), ASDA (Pierre Darcy’s), ALDI (Philizot) currently all have champagne at £10 or £9.99 a bottle.

It is hard to get excited about these wines but in the next rung up, typically from £12 to £20 a bottle, far more interesting fizz is to be found among the supermarkets’ best Own Label lines, champagne from some of the less well known houses and one or two growers’ cuvées.

We have tasted our way through many of these champagnes to try and find the best drinking for the Christmas holidays and New Year at the most competitive price. We have also picked out some of the best vintage champagne for current drinking, both from less well known producers and the big international brands (to follow soon). See the ‘Best current buys’ section on the Latest Retail Offers page.