Debate a Bubble - Champagne News and Reviews

Champagne and Seafood - How To Put On A Very Special Dinner

If you've ever fancied bringing some champagne style to your dinner table, here's a post that will show you how to put on a very special dinner that's not hugely complicated and that will really give your foodie friends something to talk about

It was last Wednesday evening that I was invited to go along to a special champagne and seafood dinner in Reims.

We parked outside what looked like just a fishmonger's shop - a pretty impressive one it has to be said, but just a shop nevertheless.

Little did I realise that behind the scenes is a small 30 seater restaurant that I imagine is a mecca for lovers of fish.

It's called Le Bocal and the owner (in her spare time??) is in charge of the kitchen at Laurent Perrier's hospitality mansion Le Château de Louvois, so she knows a bit about cooking

But tonight it was simple meal.

The theme was to taste and compare 3 mono cepages champagnes with a variety of seafoods.

What does mono cepage mean? Well, these are champagne made with just one grape variety instead of being a blend of different grapes, so with mono cepage  you have a true impression of each grape variety's characteristics. So there was a Blanc de Blancs( 100% Chardonnay ) and two Blanc de Noirs, one a 100% Pinot Noir and the other 100% Pinot Meunier.

Of course there was another champagne for the aperitif - we're in Champagne after all - and this was a classic blend of all three grapes.

It was Cuvée Brut Réserve from Bérèche

Premier Cru from Ludes, Ormes and Mareuil Le Port, this is a blend of equal parts of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier with 9 gr/litre dosage and at least 2 years ageing.

I have to say it was a little disappointing. Lacking in depth and body for me.

When we sat down to eat all the champagnes were served blind so it wasn't until later that we found out exactly who had made them and which was which - that was the challenge for the evening: to identify the champagnes and see how they matched up with the food - and gorgeous food it was too.

A dozen bio-dynamically raised crevettes from Madagascar of all places - apparently the world's most sought-after source.

Two very generous strips of Red Label smoked salmon from Scotland. The thickness and texture were amazing and there was an amazingly bold  smokiness to them.

Red Label is the topmost quality category and is a far cry from ordinary scotch salmon. The Scots went to great lengths to meet the rigorous standards needed to obtain the Red Label tag and much of the production now finds its way to France

Last but not least, home made taramasalata made with cod eggs and cream and no colouring at all.

You needn't go to quite these extremes at home to put on a great meal, but if you're going to serve good champagnes, they deserve good food to accompany them.

Talking of the champagnes, we enjoyed:

Cuvée Carte d'Or Blanc de Blancs from Champagne Doyard Mahé in Vertus

Cuvée Réserve from Champagne Trudon (100% Meunier- sometimes called a blanc de meuniers)

Blanc de Noirs from Champagne Patrick Soutiran in Ambonnay (100% Pinot Noir)

Personally Ithought the Trudon was the best match across the board with the various dishes.

The Pinot Noir from Patrick Soutiran was just too heavy with fish and the Blancs de Blancs was pleasant without being outstanding

I was in a minority though and most people felt that the Blanc de Blancs took the honours

So here's the thing. Why not do the same thing at home with 6 or 8 friends?

The food is relatively simple to prepare, the champagnes made need a bit of tracking down, particularly the 100% Meunier, but you don't have to use the same brands as we did as long as you get one champagne of each style.

Serve the food with simple fresh bread, then sit back, taste, sip and chat.

Notice the  different shades of colour across the different champagnes, then look for different aromas and tastes

I bet you'll have a lot of fun and learn quite a bit into the bargain

Let me know how you get on

Visiting Champagne - Hautvillers and Dom Pérignon

If you ever visit Champagne you’ll quickly discover that there are hundreds of villages where champagne is made, 323 of them in fact, at least that’s the number I’ve been told.

With all these to choose from how do you decide which to visit?

Well, there’s one that you really shouldn’t miss out and that’s Hautvillers; not only is it a pretty village with a stupendous view, it also has a special place in the history of champagne because the abbey of Hautvillers, is where Dom Pérignon lived and worked

If you’re a champagne lover you will have heard of Dom Pérignon. Lots has been written about him and what he did, but for now let’s just focus on the village and the abbey.

The history of the Abbey of Hautvillers stretches back over 1300 years to its foundation some time around 650 A.D. by Bishop Nivard of Reims, grandson of King Clotaire II and nephew of another king called Dagobert – no need to remember them because they’re hardly household names these days.

Now we’ll skip forward about a thousand years during which the fortunes of the abbey ebbed and flowed many times. On at least four occasions the abbey was sacked and burned by invading armies only to be built and restored, on one occasion thanks to the financial help of no less than Catherine de Medici - talk about having friends in high places!

In 1668 a young Benectine monk named Pierre Pérignon was put in charge of the day to day running of the abbey.

Born into a staunchly middle class family, this 29 year-old was to guide the material fortunes of the abbey for the next 47 years until his death in 1715.

During the time of Dom Pérignon the abbey and especially the traditions of wine-growing and wine-making which were a fundamental part of life at the abbey as well as in the surrounding region, developed and prospered out of all recognition.

Then in 1791 in the turmoil of the French Revolution, the abbey was dissolved and its goods and possessions scattered far and wide.

It was not until 1823 that the fortunes of the abbey took a turn for the better when Pierre-Gabriel  Chandon de Brialles, son-in-law of Jean-Remy Moët, resolved to restore the famous abbey.

Thanks to Pierre-Gabriel and his descendants the abbey flourished yet again and was turned into a text-book model of good agricultural practice

History intervened yet again in the 20th century when, just as they had done in times gone by, invading armies marched across the plains of Champagne and the region was ravaged by battles once more.

Although the abbey seems to have escaped damage in the First World War, it was badly damaged during the Second World War and in 1941 the abbey and the estate were sold to Moët & Chandon who them it to this day.

When you visit Hautvillers you’ll find that the abbey is not open to the public – it’s used by Moët & Chandon for private visits, but you can visit the church next door and see the plaque in the floor that marks Dom Pérignon’s resting place.

Hautvillers has got to be one of the prettiest vilages in Champagne. It’s perched on a hillside overlooking Epernay and the Marne River below and it’s a superb view point.

Added to this the local champagne makers have made a real effort to decorate their homes with wrought irons signs above the doors.

There are a few (not many) shops and a café plus a restaurant. Last time I was in Hautvillers the café was closed and the restaurant left a little to be desired, but maybe this is splitting hairs.

The point is that Hautvillers should definitely be on your list of places in to visit Champagne.

To finish off here are a few more pictures to whet your appetite

 

Champagne Glasses - Choose Your Weapons

Have you ever seen any of those black and white films set in the Victorian era when men would sometimes challenge each other to a duel to defend their honour?  Before the duel could start the essential thing was to choose the weapons: would it be swords, pistols or some other device? The choice of weapon made all the difference

When it comes to enjoying champagne, it's the glasses that make all the difference and although the stakes are not quite so high it's important to make the right choice for you. So what are those choices and why does it matter?...

Broadly speaking you have two choices. You can:

•    Go for something that you find beautiful, or
•    Choose a glass that will bring out the best in the champagne.

Sometimes you can achieve both objectives with the same glass, but not always.
Here are some suggestions:

A good glass really does change your experience of the champagne, so treat yourself to some thing of decent quality. What do I mean by that?

Well, champagne glasses should be fine and elegant. Above all the glass shouldn’t be too thick.

Think of it this way: it’s like drinking tea. You can enjoy tea from a fine bone china tea cup or from a porcelain mug, but the choice of cup or mug gives a different experience.

The worst things are those thick, dumpy flutes that you sometimes get in hotels and  at large functions. (right)

They simply don’t bring out anything in the champagne and certainly not its best.

This is a pity because caterers should know better and you can be sure they won’t offer you any reduction in the price to compensate for using awful glasses!


Light, not too heavy when you pick the glass up.
Champagne is a light, bubbly drink that lifts the spirits and the glass should complement this.

Personally I find cut lead crystal glass too heavy. For me, the lighter the better, almost as if the glass doesn’t exist.

(the glasses on the right are too fussy, in my view) 




Fairly tall with a long stem.
The stem is for holding so make sure there is something to get your hand around. A tall glass is also more elegant, as befits champagne



Not too narrow
To release the aromas in any wine you need to swirl the wine around a bit in the glass, so don’t choose anything that’s too narrow, or you just can’t get any movement in the wine.
 (see left)

The right shape

Equally the top of the glass should ideally turn in slightly so as to concentrate the aromas towards your nose when you drink. Glasses that splay out at the top allow the aromas to dissipate, (see right). 

The history of the champagne glass 

If you go back a few hundred years, champagne makers hadn’t worked out how to remove the sediment from the bottle, so champagne was cloudy and slightly muddy-looking. To disguise this, the surface of the some champagne glasses, especially the tall and slim ones, was often left deliberately rough and semi-opaque. This was called a barley grain effect.

Another trick was to have hollow stems to the glasses so that the sediment sank down into the stem leaving the rest of the liquid fairly clear.

Then around the start of the 19th century, Veuve Clicquot, so the story goes, invented the process of remuage or riddling to remove the sediment, so the problem of murky champagne was solved, allowing totally transparent glasses to be used.

Sometime later in the 19th century and right through into the 20th century, the saucer-shaped glass called a coupe came back into fashion again, only to be superseded from about the 1970s onwards by the tall, slim glass that we call a flute.

Flute versus coupe

 Flute is the word used to describe the tall, narrow, tulip-shaped style of champagne glass whereas coupe is the term for the shallow, saucer-shaped glass.

The flute has several advantages if you really want to appreciate the champagne you’re drinking.

First you can see the stream of bubbles rising up the length of the glass and the bubbles, after all, are one of the main pleasures of champagne.

Second and more important, the tall, narrow shape focuses the aromas so that when you raise the glass to drink you can also smell and enjoy the full concentration of the aromas.

For this reason the most effective flutes curve slightly inwards at the top (like the shape of a tulip - see left), whilst those that open out at the top (like the shape of a lily) allow some of the aromas to escape.

Coupe glasses can be a lot of fun. For me they evoke images of decadent cocktail parties in the 1920s with people doing the Charleston, but they go back a lot further than that because legend has it that the shape was modelled on Marie Antoinette’s breasts.

I think coupes are great for serving champagne cocktails, but equally some people can’t get the less flattering connection with the 60’s drink Babycham, out of their minds.

The main drawback of the coupe is that the aromas of the champagne dissipate rapidly and you simply don’t get the concentration of aromas that you can appreciate with a flute.

Another story you often hear about coupe glasses is that the bubbles disappear more quickly than in a flute. This is another old wives’ tale which for all intents and purposes is of no practical value.

The bubbles in champagne just don’t disappear in a few minutes, even in a coupe glass – it takes an hour or much more for champagne to lose its sparkle.

I don’t know how long it takes you to finish a glass of champagne, but in my case it’s a matter of minutes, not hours, so I shouldn’t pay much attention to this particular myth about coupe glasses.

Remember, if you are at all interested in enjoying good champagne, then do get yourself some good champagne glasses.

Champagne brands – How to find the right one for you

Champagne – for many people just the very mention of the word conjures up images of luxury, elegance and romance.

Many people believe that there are just a hand-full of famous champagne brands, but in fact there are almost 5,000 different champagne makers. They’re all unique in their way and many of them produce superb wine that rival better known champagnes, but faced with such a wide choice, how to you decide? Here are some quick pointers to help you make the right decision for you.

There are four things that determine the quality and style of a champagne and that you should know before you choose a champagne:
•    What grapes were used and in what proportions?
•    What was the quality of the grapes used?
•    How long has the champagne been aged?
•    How sweet is it?

Some of this information can be found on the label. For the rest you’ll have to ask the people in the shop – they should be able to tell you. If they can’t, go to another shop!

Grapes
Champagne can be made with 3 grape varieties: one white, Chardonnay, and two black, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. The grapes can be blended together in whatever proportions the wine maker chooses, but this choice makes a big difference to the end result.

It’s common to describe grapes in terms of smells and tastes, but for some people it’s helpful to think of them as colours in an artist’s palette or instruments in an orchestra. When you mix colours and sounds together you often get something that is more than just the sum of the parts.

Chardonnay:  generally light in style ( this doesn’t mean lacking in flavour ). It’s sometimes described as ‘ elegant’, or ‘feminine’ and is characterised by flavours and aromas of citrus fruit and floral notes such as blossom.

If Chardonnay were a colour it would be bright yellow or vivid white. It’s the flute or violin of the orchestra.

Pinot Noir: brings more body and power to the champagne together with flavours and aromas of red fruits such as cherry, blackcurrant and strawberry.

Pinot Meunier: brings aromas of apples and pears together with a fresh fruity quality that makes a champagne easy to drink and soft in the mouth.

These two black grapes are the bass notes – the trombones and drums of the orchestra, or the rich reds, blues and greens of the artist.

Quality
Any good chef will tell you that to make a great dish you must start with great ingredients – it’s the same with the grapes in champagne.

There are 3 grades of quality:
The top 5 % of the vineyards are called Grand Cru ( you‘ll see this on the label if it applies )
The next 15% are designated as Premier Cru ( also on the label)
The rest are classified as Cru ( if you don’t see Grand or Premier Cru on the label, then the blend is an ordinary Cru )

When different qualities are mixed together the quality of the overall blend is determined by the   lowest quality element, even if there’s only a tiny amount of that lower quality ingredient. So a blend of 98% Grand Cru, 1% Premier Cru and  1% Cru, is not entitled to be called either Grand Cru or Premier Cru. It all has to be called just plain Cru

 Ageing
 Almost never mentioned on the label but nevertheless one of main factors determining quality.

The critical thing is the time the champagne spends ageing on the lees ( yeast sediment ) in the cellar in France before it is sold.

15 months is the legal minimum ageing on lees for a champagne, but this is barely time enough for the round rich flavours to develop and for the champagne to loose it’s young, acidic edge.

In practice 2.5 years, or 3 is better and if you can find a champagne that is aged even longer, so much the better.

N.B  this is not at all the same thing as the time you keep the bottle after you have bought it and the best thing, unless you have a superb cellar in your home, is not to keep champagne longer than a year or two at most after you buy it.

Sweetness
By the end of the champagne making process the champagne in the bottle is bone dry – too dry for most  people’s taste - so a small amount of liquid sugar is added to make the champagne more acceptable to the consumer’s expectations. The more sugar you add, the sweeter the champagne.

Depending on how sweet a tooth you have, what the occasion is and what food you may be eating with the champagne, you’ll want a champagne with a different level of sweetness. Fortunately this is always indicated on the label if you know what to look for.

Most champagne is fairly dry – this style is called Brut and you’ll see this word on the label

 If you like something sweeter, look for the words Demi-Sec on the label.

On the other hand if a really dry champagne is your favourite then you should look for the words Extra Brut or Brut Nature.

Champagne brands – Look out the old guard

Last Monday there was a small tasting event here in Champagne and it was the chance to meet and talk to some of the up-an-coming champagne makers who, in terms of quality at least, can be the equal of all but a very small handful of the better-known international brands.

 It was glorious day and by the time I arrived at the Hotel Castel Jeanson in the village of Aÿ there were cars parked on both sides of the road, but I saw none from England – these champagne makers are still more or less unknown in the biggest export market in the world.

There were 17 makers in total, many of them producing organic or bio dynamic champagne.

Here’s the full list. If you haven’t heard of them yet, they you will soon and you should try them:

Pascal AGRAPART

Françoise BEDEL

BERECHE & Fils
Francis BOULARD & Daughter
CHARTOGNE-TAILLET
Vincent COUCHE
Pascal DOQUET
René GEOFFROY
Henri GOUTOURBE
JEAUNAUX-ROBIN
Benoit LAHEYE
LAHERTE Frères
David LECLAPART
Franck PASCAL
Hubert PAULET
POUILLON & Fils
TARLANT

One of the most interesting things about this particular tasting was that each maker presented a selection of base wines or vins clairs as they are called. These are the still wines made from the previous harvest and are the basic building blocks that the maker will blend together to them turn into champagne.

Every champagne maker uses vins clairs of course, but having the chance to taste so many and to chat to the makers about the different characteristics of each one, is not an experience you’ll ever get in one of the big houses. It gives a great chance to understand how complex a wine champagne can be.

All vins clairs reveal the different nuances of the different grapes and different plots of land whence they come, but these smaller makers seemed to have a greater spirit of adventure and inquiry than most and are willing to experiment with all sorts of possible variations.

For example Vincent Couche has spent a long time studying the nuances of geology in his part of the Aube region and presented two base wines, both made from Pinot Noir, but one from grapes grown in soil generally planted with Pinot Noir - no surprises there then, but the other vin clair was  from soil traditionally assumed to be best for  Chardonnay.

Another trend that is gaining momentum these days and which was very much in evidence last week was the preference to use only very low dosage, that is very low amounts of added sugar. The rationale in this is that less sugar means that the natural taste of the grape and influence of the different soils can come shining through.

Even though I know or had heard of most of these makers I managed only to visit 5 of the 17 stands, so plenty more to visit in the next few weeks and months and I’ll write about them in more detail individually.

It was a superb little event and only goes to reinforce my feeling that the greatest delights in Champagne can be found just as easily in the out of the way places as on the well beaten tourist track.

Harley Davidsons And Champagne

Some people might say that riding Harley Davidsons and champagne don't mix but try telling that to the 2 dozen or so Harley riders who descended on Verzy last weekend.

I had just popped out for a baguette at the boulangerie and wow! Harley Davidsons Parked all over the little car park in front of the Mairie.

All spotlessly clean and come to think of it I don't think I've ever seen a dirty Harley Davidson - must be self-cleaning

No riders around mind you, but a moment listening told me where they were. All enjoying lunch , and a few glasses of champagne by the sound of it, in the local restaurant, Au Chant des Galipes.

Didn't hear them arrive and didn't hear them go either, just a few pictures to prove that they were there at all.

 

Rosé Champagne – Why It’s Always That Little Bit More Expensive

Lots of people, and perhaps you’re one of them, love rosé champagne but sometimes ask themselves why it’s always that little bit more expensive than normal, white champagne. Some people even suspect it’s all a marketing ploy just to get you to pay more.

Well, in fact there is a good reason why rosé costs that little bit extra and here’s why...

Apart from the colour and the taste there’s something else that’s different about rosé champagne and that’s the way it’s made.

In fact there are two ways to make rosé champagne but by far the most common is simply to take still red wine and add a small proportion, somewhere around 10%,  to still white wine to make a pink blend from the two. After that the blend goes through the normal champagne making process which creates the bubbles and turns the still wine into champagne.

Champagne is the only wine making region in France where they are allowed to make rosé this way.

It sounds so simple and cheap doesn’t it, but as with many things, it’s easier said than done.

For one thing the red wine must be made in Champagne from grapes grown in Champagne.

On the surface of it you wouldn’t think that finding red wine in Champagne would be a problem. 

There’s been a wine making heritage in Champagne going back centuries. Even before Champagne became famous for its sparkling wine, still red and white wines from Champagne villages such as Bouzy, Dizy and Aÿ, were despatched by road and river to the royal courts near Paris and enjoyed by the French aristocracy. In fact, back in the 1500s still wine from Champagne was more popular than Burgundy.

These wines go by the appellation ‘Coteaux Champenois’ to distinguish them from champagne and they’re still made today, if you can find them... and that leads us on to the next point

In theory there should be no problem finding red wine in champagne, but despite there being millions and millions of black grapes grown in Champagne every year, very few of them are made into red wine

The reasons for this are simple:

•    It takes time, effort and patience to make red wine, so the final product is costly

•    With the Champagne region being so far north, red wine made here is never really top quality,  nothing that’s ever going to rival the great red wine made elsewhere in France

•    The high price coupled with the average quality means that it’s not easy to sell red Coteaux Champenois wine, so why make it in the first place?

•    Last and certainly not least, it’s more profitable, to press the grapes to make regular white champagne which sells at higher prices that the wine makers can get for still wine.


What this means for lovers of rosé champagne is that it’s always going to be more expensive than the equivalent white champagne because of the cost of the red wine.

 If rosé champagne were any cheaper, no one would bother making red wine – the crucial ingredient -  in the first place.

So next time  you're enjoying a lovely glass of rosé just relax in the knowledge that you aren't being ripped off, it genuinely does cost more.

Champagne Brands - Which Is The Most Glamorous Of Them All?

Ask 100 champagne drinkers this question and you’re bound to get as many different answers, but you can bet that a handful of familiar names will crop up more than the others: Dom Pérignon, Cristal, Krug, La Grande Dame are likely to be mentioned a lot.

But how would it be if none of these were the most glamourous champagne brand and how on earth do you choose one anyway?

In one sense it’s impossible because it’s a very personal thing but if there were a way of choosing just one brand, what would be the  deciding factor that no one could argue about?

Well it couldn’t be the price because that  varies from one bar and wineshop to another and it couldn’t be the taste because we all have different likes and dislikes.  No, what we’re looking for is something  indisputable that no one can  argue about.

One way of deciding might be to see which the oldest champagne house is. After all we usually associate great age and a rich history with things that are the best of the best, so perhaps we should look into this? Besides, it will give you a new insight into the whole business of champagne brands.

In most countries and most industries it’s rare to find companies that were  founded over 200 years ago and are still going strong, but in Champagne there’s a positive avalanche of them – well, alright, a handful then, but that’s still impressive.

Here are a few of them - the names may not all be familiar to you...

The oldest champagne house of all is Ruinart - La Plus Ancienne Maison de Champagne – it was created back in 1729.

 Ruinart also has some of the most spectacular cellars too. They date back to Roman times and in fact Ruinart’s cellars are the only ones that are classifed as a national treasure. Right now the cellars are closed for restoration, but when you next find yourself in Reims a visit to Ruinart is a must

Gosset  is also a very venerable, old company dating back to 1584. Wait a minute.... doesn’t that make it older than Ruinart?

Well yes, but the thing is that Gosset started out as a wine merchant and even though we know they sold still wine, there are no written records to  prove that Gosset sold champagne all that time ago.

So Gosset is always very careful to describe itself as the Oldest Wine House in the Champagne Region ‘ La plus Ancienne Maison de Vins de la Champagne’

Incidentally when speaking of champagne in French, Le champagne means the wine made in that region; La Champagne means the region itself.

The  biggest champagne house of them all is Moët & Chandon.

La Grande Maison, as it is sometimes called, was founded in 1743 by Claude Moët (pronouncd with the T sounded, like MO ETTE).

There are no records to show that Monsieur Moët was a champagne maker before 1743 but by that time he was already in his forties so who knows?  He may well have started his company a few years earlier.

Another fine house with its origins going back to the 18th century is Louis Roederer founded in 1776 a date which every American will know by heart

 It’s Roederer that makes Cristal which was originally  made for Tsar Alexander II of Russia back in 1876 , mind you, back then it was a sweet champage, not much like the Cristal produced today.

Relative new-comers by champagne standards, but still names with a proud  ancestry are

Lanson                Founded in        1760
Veuve Clicqout Ponsardin              1772
Piper Heidsieck                            1785
Perrier Jouët                                1811
Laurent Perrier                            1812
Billecart Salmon                            1818

In some special way it adds an extra touch of magic to know that there’s more than a little bit of history in every sip of champagne you enjoy.

But if age is the main source of prestige what about some of the smaller champagne brands?

Many of the the less well-known families that still make outstanding champagne today have been  around in the Champagne region for centuries too.

Champagne Henri Giraud’s family can trace its roots back to 1625 when François Hémart settled in the village of Aÿ. The Girauds later married into the Hémart family to form today’s champagne house. 

Another champagne brand you may not have heard of is Chanoine. Today it is part of a very large group of champagne producers, but it was founded in 1730 which makes it the second oldest of the lot.

Meanwhile another, Louis de Sacy, boasts that its family was established as vine growers in the village of Verzy as long ago as 1633

There’s no getting away from the fact that when it comes to pedigree some of the smaller houses have an equally proud history as the giant champagne brands and are well worth getting to know when you have the opportunity

It just goes to show that there are other things worth taking into account when it comes to champagne apart from just the price and the advertising.

Champagne brands - How come Cristal and Dom Pérignon are so expensive?

You know that it can cost a lot of money to treat yourself to a bottle of the world’s most prestigious brands of champagne and wonderful wines though they are, perhaps you still can’t help a little question cropping up in the back} of your mind:  “Why is it that Cristal, Dom Pérignon, Krug and a few others, are so pricey and are they really worth it?”

Well, in one sense there’s no real answer to this question, but when you  understand a little about the  workings of the champagne industry then you may be able to forget about the price, let go and and just enjoy the experience, or the champagne in this case.

The leading brands of champagne are certainly well-established amongst the world’s leading luxury brands and as you all know, or at least suspect, when you’re talking about luxury brands the  normal rules about price and value for money go out of the  window. If you want to enjoy these brands then it’s almost vulgar to wonder about the price.

If you’re thinking about buying a Ferrari you don’t ask how many miles it does to the gallon – except on environmental grounds. No, if you’re worried about how to pay for the fuel, you can’t afford the car.

So it’s pointless to ask if a Bentley or a bottle of Cristal represents good value for money; it’s all relative anyway.

Nor is there any sense in trying to figure out what each individual element in Dom Pérignon costs : $X for the grapes plus $Y for the production, add on $Z for the distribution and Hey Presto you get to what you have to fork out in the shop or restaurant.

It just doesn’t work like that.

For a start rule No. 1 for luxury goods companies is never to justify the price with logic: a )  that would ruin half of the  mystique and appeal around the brand b) it can’t be done because a  large part of the price you pay  is intangible and c) when you buy a luxury product you’re buying a dream, an emotion as much as the product  itself, and that emotion is beyond value.

That’s a pretty frustrating answer though, so let’s look at another aspect of the cost of prestige champagne brands that may not make the price tag any more affordable but which will shed a little light on the perplexing issue of why the most expensive champagnes cost what they do.

To give you some background here are a few facts about the champagne industry:

For a sparkling wine to be called champagne it must be made in a region of France called Champagne and in fact that region is not that large: it covers roughly 35,000 hectares or 86,000 acres.

As well as being produced in a relatively small area sparkling wine made in Champagne is also fenced about by a whole raft of rules and regulations and that means that the amount of bottles produced per year is also limited - it’s around 300 million bottles per year, actually.

That may sound a lot but don’t forget that champagne is drunk all over the world and the demand is very high too.

The fact that champagne is so popular all over the planet is not something that happened by accident. It came about because of the huge amounts of cash that the major champagne brands have invested, and still do, in marketing and promoting to build and sustain the image of their brand and of champagne in general.

Odd though it may sound, although it may be a little bit easier to accept after reading about all that marketing spend, selling what you might call ‘standard’ champagne – that’s the usual non-vintage stuff – is not hugely profitable precisely because of what it costs to market the brands.

No, I don’t expect you to  shed a tear for the likes of Moët & Chandon, Taittinger, Roederer and the rest – they’re not paupers after all – but most of them haven’t made a fortune from focussing on the regular, non-vintage champagnes in their range.

It’s on the super expensive prestige cuvées that they make their profit.

Look at it this way your main selling brand is not that profitable; there’s loads of competition from other brands so you can’t up your prices much or the customers will stop buying, so what do you do?

Well, you create another, more expensive champagne which is aimed at wealthier consumers and you charge a lot of money for it. You may not sell very much of it, but what you do sell is very lucrative and even better than that, you don’t have to spend the same amounts of money on  marketing the new baby because that job’s already been  taken care of by the existing champagne that carries the same company name.

Bingo, it’s jackpot time!

O.K. perhaps that’s an over-simplification, but it’s definitely the attractive margins on those prestige cuvées that keep champagne houses going because a much greater share of the proceeds from the top dollar champagne brands goes straight into the bank.

So  the bottom line on why Cristal, Dom Pérignon and the others are as pricey as they are is because they have to be expensive, at least when you look at things from the commercial point of view of the champagne maker. So they charge whatever the customer is prepared to pay.

This may not have been the answer you were hoping for but there’s no point in getting too hung up on the  cost of prestige champagnes; they are what they are and the best thing is not to labour too much on the price and instead just revel in the experience.

Cuvée Champagne - Another Champagne Myth?

Recently I noticed how many people search Google every month for the term Cuvée Champagne. There are thousands and I got to wondering why.

I suppose that many people think that these two simple words somehow indicate a better quality champagne. If that’s the case then I’m sorry to say that this is just another of those weird tales and anecdotes that champagne seems to attract for no apparent reason. Here’s why...

Don’t get me wrong, I love the glitz and glamour that has been built up around champagne just as much as the next person; without it a glass of champagne would be just another glass of wine, with it champagne becomes a luxurious little indulgence that leaves us feeling that the  sun is shining and all is right in the world. 

 In many ways the reputation of champagne is built on real quality but on the other hand the aura of mystery and magic that goes with champagne can conceal a lot of  hot air and ‘marketing speak’ that has little or no foundation in fact.

If you don’t want to waste your money it’s important to be able to tell the difference between the two and cuvée champagne falls fair and square into the category of ‘champagne misconceptions’

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

The word cuvée comes from the word Cuve which means a vat or container used to store  wine. The picture above shows a row of 'cuves' and there's nothing particularly glamourous or special about them, as you can see.

The cuvée is the actual liquid that’s in the vat, so for all intents and purposes cuvée really only means ‘wine’ and doesn’t have any notion of special quality whatsoever.

The meaning has been extended to indicate a particular blend that the champagne maker has put together, but there’s nothing remarkable about that either because all champagne is a blend so every single champagne that is produced could be described as  cuvée.

Sometimes you see the words special cuvée or even cuvée de prestige which people assume means that the champagne is of a higher than normal quality. Well, that’s true as far as it goes: Dom Pérignon is considered to be a cuvée de prestige and the same could be said for Cristal or any other famous brand but there are no  absolute criteria to say what can and can’t be a special cuvée or a cuvée de prestige, so in theory any champagne maker can use these words.

The word cuvée is also used in another sense. It’s the word used to describe the first juice that comes from the grapes as they are pressed.

Lots of champagne makers make a big thing about only using La Cuvée for their champagnes as if this is very rare, but here again you’ve got to be careful not to get taken in by flowery language.


La Cuvée is the most sought after part  the juice because it’s rich in both sugar and acid -  you need both to make a great champagne – and it has none of the bitterness that you can find in La Taille which is the juice that comes out of the press towards the end of the pressing process.

That’s when you're getting down to the skins, pips and stalks and these can give the juice a sort of astringency and that’s best avoided.

BUT...
The fact of the matter is that a full 80% of the juice that comes off the press is classified as Cuvée, so it’s not that exclusive after all.

That’s the thing about champagne: a little knowledge can be dangerous, so my advice would be don’t put too much importance on the word cuvée and certainly don’t automatically think that cuvée champagne is necessarily the stuff to look out for.

Second picture courtesy of Billecart-Salmon