Debate a Bubble - Champagne News and Reviews

Microclimates - One of The Secrets of Champagne

It's only been a month since the harvest in Champagne, but when I was there earlier this week I was surprised by how much change there has already been in the vineyards and this gave me an interesting insight into the existence of microclimates in Champagne...

I don't know what the weather's been like where you live but I've just got back from spending a few days in our home in Champagne and the weather there was absolutely fantastic : bright blue skies and glorious sunshine with just a hint of chill in the air in the early morning and evening.

Looking at this picture you'd think that it was only just the end of summer: the leaves are still quite green and there are still plenty of them on the vines.

Walk for just a hundred yards / metres or so, and you can get quite a different impression as you'll see from the picture below.

This  picture is taken on the same day and only just a few minutes later - just the time it took me to walk from one spot to another - but you can see that  whilst there are plenty of green leaves on the vines in the background, the closest vines are quite brown already.

The different foliage in different parts of the vineyard can be explained in many ways: part of the difference can be due to the way the vines have been treated by the vignerons - the vineyard workers. Yet most of the variety is down to the small differences in microclimate from one plot of vines to another.

The variations are due to the altitude of the slope and hence the ambient temperature, sometimes it's caused by the exposure to the sun and the wind, and yet more is explained by the subtle variations in the soil.

Here's a third picture to show you all the extremes of foliage in one go. There are hardly any leaves left at all on the vines in the foreground, yet in the distance - a matter of 1 kilometre or less away - are the same green vine leaves we saw in the first picture.

All these different colours make for a spectacular view, but more than that, it brought  home to me how complex a wine champagne can be. 

99.9% of all champagne is a blend of different wines from different vineyard plots. In many cases these plots can be in different villages, often several miles from one another. It's not uncommon for a champagne to be a blend of 50, and sometimes many more, different wines.

It's the presence of so many different components in the blend that makes the art of blending such a difficult one to master, but it also means that a well-blended champagne can be a veritable treasure trove of different nuances in flavour and aroma that can reveal themselves to you with each sip from the glass.

This complexity is something that you rarely find in other sparkling wines and is a major factor in making champagne The King of Wines (of sparkling wines at least).

More pictures from last week's trip to Champagne are coming up soon, meanwhile if you haven't entered our Win A Week In Champagne competition, hurry to go here now. The competition closes tomorrow

http://bit.ly/champers

Stay Bubbly

Jiles

Veuve Clicquot For Sale?

You hear lots of tales of amazing champagne bargains around these days, but how about the chance to buy Veuve Clicquot?

No, I don't mean a few bottles or even a few cases, but the entire company. Yes that"s the rumour doing the rounds in Champagne at the moment and it seems there may be more than a little truth in it.

I'm over here in Champagne for a few days in our home in the village of Verzy and I've been chatting with some of my neighbours, most of whom are champagne makers and who keep their ears to the ground.

To be fair this particular rumour has been around for a few months, but as with all large companies, there's a full time rumour-mill and often it's better to ignore the gossip until and unless something more positive comes to light.

However the fact that the name of Veuve Clicquot is still doing the rounds might well mean that there's more substance to this rumour.

It's true that Champagne is having a hard time at the moment. Sales are well down almost everywhere and just about every champagne maker, from the large to the small, is taking a good hard look at their business to find ways in which to generate more cash.

Sometimes in extreme times, extreme measures are needed and for Moët Hennessy ( that's the wines and spirits arm of the luxury goods group Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy) to consider selling Veuve Clicquot would certainly be drastic, but LVMH is nothing if not ruthless when it comes to business decisions and, if the numbers stack up, then they wouldn't hang on to Veuve Cliquot just for sentimental reasons.

Apparently other brands in the stable such as Mercier and Montaudon could well be on the block too which would mean that Moët Hennessy would hang on to Moët & Chandon, Dom Pérignon and Krug which presumably they regard as essential to the business in future.

This all makes sense: Moët & Chandon is the largest selling brand in the world, so that would stay, similarly Dom Pérignon is the world's best selling prestige champagne and is hugely profitable, whilst Krug has a unique image and style all of its own, which you can't really say about Veuve Clicquot, no matter how good a champagne it may be.

To add fuel to the rumour, the president of Veuve Clicquot for the past many years, Cécile Bonnefond, has left to join another company unrelated to champagne.

Interesting times indeed in Champagne.

More news as soon as I have it....

Don't forget that you can win a week in our home in Champagne by entering our easy competition. For details go here http://bit.ly/champers

Champagne Video

Just a quickkie

I'm off to our home in Champagne this weekend for a few days and whilst I'm there I plan to shoot a video all about champagne. It will be available in a few weeks probably as a free gift for anyone who buys my e-book The Insider's Guide to Champagne which, incidentally, has had some great feedback, so if you haven't grabbed your copy yet then you can do so here

www.madaboutbubbly.com

and by the way, I promise to send you a copy of the video once it's ready. 

Here are a few comments about The Insider's Guide To Champagne:

I learned more about champagne from your book, The Insider’s Guide To Champagne, than any other book, tasting or chateau visit I have had the pleasure of attending. Your personable style of writing made for an enjoyable read and the book is now handily placed as a permanent reference point. Thanks

--

I was fascinated with every page – just wanted to read on and on until tiredness overcame me and I fell asleep. Your book is MUST for anyone who wants to know about champagne

--

Your book is so informative and brilliantly written giving all the information in an exceptionally readable style which is so rare these days. It was so enjoyable that when I reached the end I wanted to start all over again! I did, and if possible it was even more enjoyable. The pleasure of reading it and the knowledge I gained was unsurpassable. I now feel I can now enjoy buying a bottle of bubbly - as I know more about it. Reading a champagne label now means something. I know what to look for and can recognise meaningless jargon. I feel that if I ever have to put up with a "champagne expert – so called – in a restaurant I can sift through the bullshit and know what questions to ask to see if he knows what he is talking about.

--

Having read Tom Stevenson's book 'Champagne and Sparkling
Wine' I found that there was too much of his own opinion involved,
which leant heavily towards the Grandes Marques.
Your book is refreshingly informative and much less focussed on
yourself, so I would recommend it above Tom Stevenson, ( I know,
unbelievable isn't it).

--

I was really chuffed by that last one because Tom Stevenson has been around for years and was considered to be the MAN on champagne.

That's it for now. More when I get back from Champagne

Stay Bubbly,

Jiles

Win A Week In Champagne

http://bit.ly/champers

 

Save Us From Low Alcohol Champagne

This post is a slight diversion I suppose.

It doesn't - yet - have any direct relevance to champagne, in fact it's more to do with wine, and believe it or not, with gin. Anyway, it's something I felt was worth line or two.

I spotted a couple of things recently about low alcohol wine.

First I saw an advert for a range of low alcohol wines launched by Marks & Spencer ( a well-known and above average food and clothing store in the U.K.)

Then I saw some market research finding that suggested that wine drinkers would be happy to drink low alcohol wine providing that the taste was the same as the higher strength version. That's a fair enough statement I guess, but the catch - and it's a big catch - is finding a low alcohol wine that tastes anything like wine at all and not insipid grape juice.

I suppose there can be no denying that there's a lot of interest at the moment in eating and drinking more healthily, and quite rightly too, but if you're anything like me and, I suspect, most wine lovers, you find the whole concept of low alcohol wine, or even worse, low-alcoholic champagne just bizarre.

I do actually find some wines with abv ( alcohol by volume ) of 14% and more to be a bit overpowering, but I simply drink less of them. I'd rather drink less ( much less even ) of the normal strength versions rather than switch to low alcohol substitutes.

As for champagne, whether it's rosé champagne, vintage champagne, or regular, non-vintage champagne, the abv is always about 12% and this is on the low side compared with many other wines and I find this just about perfect.

Now I have to admit that I haven't tried any low alcohol wine recently and it may well be that modern science has discovered ways to make them taste like the real thing, but I am highly sceptical to say the least.

The low alcohol wines and beers I remember drinking in the past were so dreadful that they put me off for life. It's going to take a lot to convince me that the latest offerings are any better, and this is where I get to the bit about gin.

A while ago I worked for Beefeater Gin in London and a very good gin it is too, in my opinion.

The head distiller, a man by the name of Desmond Payne, once told me that a fairly high degree of alcohol is essential in order to get really expressive flavours and aromas.

In the case of Beefeater Desmond insisted that minimum abv was 40% and that's why he was so appalled by the decision by Gordon's to reduce the strength of their gin to only 37.5%. Desmond was convinced that the decision was taken primarly so that there was less excise duty payable and therefore more profit for Gordon's.

In fact we did a lot of taste tests of various gins at various strengths to test the validity of the theory - tough job but someone had to do it - and it was crystal clear that the lower the alcohol content the less pronounced the flavour of the gin.

I've no reason to believe that this is any different for any other type of alcoholic drink, including wine and champagne, so don't expect me to tell you anytime soon that I've started to buy champagne that is low in alcohol.

If and when I find a low-alcohol champagne I'll let you know and it would be great if you would do the same for me. Until then I'm sticking to the real thing.

Jiles

P.S. If you haven't yet entered our Win A Week In Champagne competition, there's still time to do so.

For details go to

http://bit.ly/champers

Champagne - to keep or not to keep?

I've always told people that storing champagne is a mistake and that you shouldn't keep champagne for too long. I know that many people would disagree with me on this, but I still haven't changed my mind and a meeting last week in London only served to reinforce my view. Here's why....

I know that champagne can be kept for many years and can still be wonderful to drink, but I've heard too many tales of ordinary wine drinkers keeping champagne for years and years, just because they couldn't think of an occasion special enough to open the bottle, then, when they do finally open it, it tastes awful - completely undrinkable.

Anyway, I was down in London last week for a meeting with an MW : a Master of Wine. We had a long chat and one of the things we touched upon was this issue of keeping champagne.

For those of you who may not be familiar with the term Master of Wine, it's the most prestigious and demanding qualification you can get in the world of wine. Anyone who is a Master of Wine obviously knows their subject inside out and then some.

We met in a private club in central London to which this gentleman belongs. He was telling me that one of the advantages of being a member is the excellent wine cellar which contains some outstanding wines at amazingly low prices. In fact the members even get the chance to select the wine that the club purchases.

The way they do this is to ask suppliers to send samples for the club members to taste and then have a special tasting and choose the wines that are particularly impressive.

When it comes to champagne most suppliers send a bottle of their normal non-vintage champagne, but one champagne maker,

Champagne Lenoble,was a bit smarter. They sent a sample of a bottle that had a couple of years extra ageing and so there was an added richness and depth of flavour compared with champagne that has been aged for only the standard 2 or 3 years.

The club members immediately spotted the difference and told Lenoble that they'd definitely use their champagne as the club's own champagne if Lenoble would guarantee to always send champagne with this extra year or two of ageing. So the deal was done and everyone is happy.

You're probably saying to yourself " Hang on a minute. Doesn't this story suggest that it's a good thing to keep champagne for a year or two before drinking it? That's exactly the opposite of what you said at the beginning".

Well, there are some important differences between what happens at a prestigious London club and what happens in the homes of 99% of champagne drinkers in the rest of the world. Let me explain....

First, the samples sent by Lenoble had been aged for a extra year or two in France BEFORE being disgorged and sold. This type of ageing with the yeast still in the bottle, is not the same as keeping a bottle after you buy it by which time the yeast has been removed from the bottle. What's more, the champagne you buy in wine shops has not benefitted from the extra ageing on the yeast.

Even so, champagne that you buy at your local wine store can still be kept for a few years and it will still be good to drink - some people would say they prefer champagne that has been kept for a while, BUT and it's a big but.....

Almost no one has a wine cellar that is designed to store wine for years and years. Most of us keep our wine in the kitchen, in the garage, under the stairs or somewhere round the house and this is not the ideal way to keep wine and it will deteriorate much faster than it will in a proper cellar. Before you realise it, a year or two, or maybe five or ten, will have gone by whilst you wait for the special occasion to open your champagne and then when you do, it will be disappointing.

So the moral of this story is, if you are a member of a private club with a purpose built wine cellar, or if you have a great wine cellar in your own home, then by all means keep your champagne for a few years and enjoy the wonderful experience of old champagne, but if you are in the other 99% of the population, seize the moment and enjoy your champagne as soon as you can. Besides, it's more fun than waiting!

To read more about ageing and storing champagne, grab a copy of The Insider's Guide to Champagne at

www.madaboutbubbly.com

Stay Bubbly,

Jiles