PINOT NOIR
The quality of any fine wine depends not only on the soil, subsoil and aspect, but also on what the French call the cepages (the grape varieties) employed, and the crus (the administrative and legal definition of the finest vineyards). Champagne’s fame was founded on the Pinot Noir, Burgundy’s famous black grape. Growing Pinot Noir is invariably an exercise in masochism, given its fickleness and its apparent inability to produce good wines other than in marginal vinegrowing areas. Even there they tend not to ripen and, when they do, the tight-packed bunches of tiny grapes tend to rot. Jancis Robinson calls it a ‘minx’. More bluntly, some simply call it a bitch of a grape. And then you eat, or rather drink your words. For every so often you come across the incomparable natural sweetness of a mature, ripe Pinot in a bottle of champagne, which provides a rare, expensive and unforgettable combination of depth, structure and the natural sweetness of grapes.
Traditionally, the Pinot Noir is associated with the vineyards of the Marne, but above all those on the slopes of the Montagne de Reims. In general, as you go east round the montagne starting from the north the wines get progressively less austere. The archetypal Pinots are grown in Verzenay, a vineyard which breaks all the rules, since its slopes often face north – or west. Yet it produces the richest, blackest, most powerful grapes in the region. Its grapes, and those of the other crus on the north of the montagne, like Mailly and Verzy, provide the essential backbone for any traditional champagne. Further south-east, the wines of Ambonnay, like those of neighbouring Bouzy, as Tom Stevenson writes, ‘possess qualities somewhere between the solid, full-bodied and strongly perfumed Verzenay and the smooth, exceptionally aromatic Aÿ,’ but still are more like a true vin de la montagne than one from the rivière. But again, the wines can vary.
Bouzy, on the south-east corner of the montagne, is a great amphitheatre of vines, cradled in the lap of the montagne which protects it from the north and west. Georges Vesselle believes that ‘three-quarters of the quality comes from the microclimate and a quarter from the soil, which itself is the result of the climate.’ Bouzy is noted for producing rich powerful wines, a reputation rather belied by its still wines which need a long time to overcome their youthful thinness.
Historically, Bouzy’s only rival on the south of the montagne as it blends into the valley of the Marne is Aÿ, regarded as a great wine for a thousand years, and it is not surprising that a number of firms which have always prided themselves on the quality of their wines, like Bollinger and Deutz, are based in the town. Its wines are rich, delicate, and smoother than those from further north, although Aÿ is a large vineyard with slopes facing in all directions and inevitably not all of them are equally fine.
Yet there is a handful of great vineyards which even the most cynical locals reckon are worthy of the name of grands crus, each with the requisite, special, individual geological, geographical and climatic qualities. To Georges Vesselle, wine consultant to Mumm and mayor of Bouzy (a village seemingly exclusively populated by members of his family), ‘there are four super-crus, Bouzy, Cramant with its special outlook, Verzy and Yerzenay on the montagne, oh and possibly Ambonnay.’ He is of course biased. Less biased observers would simply add Aÿ among the black grapes.
But today Pinot Noir accounts for only a third of the vines in the department, and more than 6,600 hectares is grown in the Aube, accounting for nearly 90 per cent of the vines, thanks to the considerable hectarage planted there since 1945. But because the geology and climate are so different from those on the Marne, its wines stand apart. They are rather rustic, a light lemon colour (like a young Barsac) with a rich Pinot nose, smoky, reminiscent of slightly over-ripe loganberries. At their best they are fruitier than the Pinots from the Marne. So, although there are now some very distinguished wines produced in the Aube many – probably a majority – of its grapes are used in younger, cheaper champagnes.
PINOT MEUNIER
The – largely unjustified – historic snobbery regarding the Pinot from the Aube is as nothing compared with the almost racist attitude which used to be shown by the producers of many distinguished brands towards the Pinot Meunier. It is a cousin of the Pinot Noir, distinguished, as the name implies, by the down on the back of the leaves which makes them look as if they have been sprinkled with flour – meunier is the French word for miller. One reason behind the bad name from which it suffered for so long was because it is not grown on any scale in any other region in the world – not even in Burgundy a mere 160 kilometres to the south which specializes in Champagne’s other two grape varieties. Fortunately, the variety – like the Pinot Noir from the Aube – is capable of making much better wine than its historic reputation implied. Today, although much goes into the wines of serious brands, most of the cheaper champagnes are made largely from Pinot Meunier, which already occupies over a third of the vineyard in the Marne, and is the overwhelmingly important variety west of Epernay – another region allocated much of the new land planted since 1945.
Growers love the Pinot Meunier. ‘It grows splendidly, adapts itself very well to difficult spots – like the north-facing slopes on the south bank of the Marne,’ says Claude Badour. That is because it prefers fertile soils and does not like too much chalk (itself a source of suspicion in a region which worships chalk), and was therefore suitable for the western part of the Marne valley. Moreover, says Badour, ‘even in bad years it ripens. Look at 1972 when we got an acceptable eight to nine degrees out of it. That was at least 1 per cent more than the Pinot Noir, while some of the Chardonnays were coming in at six degrees.’ André Lallier of Deutz found that in hard, unripe years like 1984 it was ‘the only variety which does not give a hard wine,’ and in some vintages can provide a higher acidity than its allegedly nobler brother the Pinot Noir. Moreover, as a fruitier variety it matures more quickly, tasting well even when a mere eighteen months old.
By contrast, in really ripe years like 1982 the Chardonnay is the best, while in ordinary years the Pinot Noir comes into its own. Because it is rather higher in acid and lower in alcohol than the Pinot Noir the Meunier is also useful in those few years, like 1976, when the latter is rather too rich and fleshy. It flowers later even than the Pinot Noir and so is suitable for the super-marginal slopes in which Champagne abounds. But once it is growing, it ripens at a gallop.
Nevertheless, it has always had a bad reputation among winemakers. Georges Chappaz, who was largely responsible for replanting the vineyard after phylloxera, detested the Pinot Meunier: ‘We have protested often enough against the presence of Meunier in our grands crus not to maintain here our judgment on this variety. Its place, as producing a wine fruitier and less acid than the Pinot Noir, was firmly in the second crus.’ It was reckoned to be useful only in blends designed to be drunk relatively quickly and viewed as unable to produce long-lasting or elegant wines.
Even then Pinot Meunier had its defenders. Many English drinkers liked its freshness, its fruitiness, the simple enjoyment it provides. More expert tasters, like Serena Sutcliffe, delight in its ‘nose of warm bread’ – which many mistakenly call yeasty (an overused adjective much frowned on in Champagne as indicating that something has gone wrong with the fermentation). Edmond Maudière of Moët explained how you can find ‘a toasty, pain grillé aroma in a champagne. This is due to Pinot Meunier, this boulangerie smell ... a good nose. Too bad it doesn’t age well.’ ‘Yes,’ said his colleague Dominique Foulon, ‘there is Pinot Meunier in our Brut Imperial, but you can never tell if it will last.’ Christian Billy of Pol Roger, who admits that he needs Pinot Meunier for his non-vintage wine, gives three years as the ideal time to drink it.
Moreover, there were always enthusiasts, sometimes including unlikely candidates. For well over half a century Krug bought half the crop of Pinot Meunier from Leuvrigny, a small commune a few kilometres west of Epernay, an otherwise unremarkable cru, and one, moreover, on the shady, and thus unfashionable south bank of the Marne. As Henri Krug put it: ‘when you assemble a blend you are wr
iting a symphony: you need a little reminder of the flute. For me the Meunier is a witty touch.’ Up to a fifth of Meunier is included in its Grande Cuvée, most long-lasting of all non-vintage wines. It is the exception which proves the rule that the Meunier develops and dies early. The fruit in the wine Krug makes from Leuvrigny takes time to develop but clearly lasts over twenty years – tasting a 1964 Krug twenty years later it was still vibrantly fruity, a quality attributed by Henri Krug to the fact that it contained a full fifth of Meunier. But Krug is not alone in his enthusiasm for Leuvrigny, he has to compete for its grapes with the likes of Roederer.
The basic problem with the variety turned out not to be a matter of any inherent inferiority but simply a matter of expertise – the cooperative producing Pannier champagne at Château Thierry 50 kilometres west of Epernay was a pioneer in mastering its production. Long, slow fermentation is one of the reasons wines from the Pinot Meunier are so fruity. ‘It needs fermenting for a long time at 15 degrees,’ says Francois Alvouet of the cooperative at Chateau Thierry. ‘We know how to do it, and so does Moët’ – partly, one suspects, because of the large acreage of vineyards round the town bought in the 1950s by Mercier, now a Moët subsidiary. When Richard Geoffroy, now reponsible for all Moët’s wines including Dom Perignon, started his career making Mercier he found that the Meunier simply required more tender loving care, in the form of clearer juice, strict temperature control during fermentation and definite malolactic fermentation. It could then produce wines which were both rich and elegant. Not surprisingly, while thirty years ago many firms making much less expensive wines used to boast that they never included any Meunier, today they say quite casually that they use up to a third in the blend – Fabrice Rosset of Deutz is typical in pointing to its qualities of structure and fruitiness.
CHARDONNAY
Until recently the region’s only white variety, Burgundy’s Chardonnay, was less highly rated, although, under the name Epinette, it had been planted in Champagne for several hundred years. In the early twentieth century Maurice Pol Roger used to say that Chardonnay ‘était de la flotte’, that it was watery – implying that it bore the same relationship to real champagne as keg bitter does to real ale. But since 1945 the fashion has grown for lighter champagnes including a higher percentage of Chardonnay – including those made by Pol Roger – and for blanc de blancs,53 champagnes made exclusively from the variety. Not surprisingly, given the overwhelming demand for dry champagnes as aperitifs, buyers will now pay a premium for Chardonnay grapes.
The Chardonnay is a reliable grape so the variations between the grapes it produces are narrower than those found with the more wayward Pinot Noir, even within so small a region as Champagne. It occupies less than 30 per cent of the vineyard, the great majority in the Marne with a little in the Aube, and given the amount of pure blanc de blancs, some of the numerous firms which claim that their champagnes contain at least a third Chardonnay must, to put it mildly, be fibbing. Not that there is any temptation to use the Chardonnay for still wines. Champagne is even less suited for growing white grapes for still white wines than it is for producing still wines from black grapes. ‘Most of those who have tasted Champagne Chardonnay in the raw state,’ wrote one expert, ‘understand well why champagne has bubbles in it. The wine is bone dry, searingly high in acidity, and not a great pleasure to drink. The famous body of Chardonnay is reduced to a skeleton, but what is left has the same nobility as any other well brought-up Chardonnay.’ Moreover, the grape needs time. ‘From a hard and virtually tasteless youth’, wrote Tom Stevenson, ‘it gets longer and longer.’ A 1964 Moët tasted twenty-two years later had all the rounded oiliness, the definite structure, of an old Chardonnay, a rich ‘Meursault champenoise’. Chardonnays were often fermented in wood, and so were more woody than their modern equivalents, fermented in stainless steel.
Because the white grapes even from the Côte des Blancs were underrated for so long compared with the black grapes from the valley or the mountain the particular qualities of the Chardonnay and the villages where it grew best was little discussed. Yet since 1945 they have been appreciated for their individual qualities. Of all the vineyards on the Côte des Blancs, Cramant is generally reckoned the most special. Like Bouzy, it has a very special microclimate. Where the other vineyards on the Côte are relatively straightforward, east-facing slopes, Cramant is a suntrap, a warm bowl with some slopes facing due south. Wine writers go overboard for the sheer intensity of its wines, which can, however, overwhelm any blend – Krug finds the same with the wines from Avize, which with time become too powerful even with only 3 per cent in the blend The lasting qualities of the best Chardonnay were demonstrated by the 1979, which was still a very young and fresh wine seven years later.
The other truly grands crus on the Côte are less strikingly individual, although the general standard is usually astonishingly high, largely because the crus form such homogeneous slopes. There is less difference between the great crus of the Côte than between the black grapes grown further north. ‘It’s all good between Chouilly and Vertus,’ said the late Roger Duval of Duval-Leroy, the only major firm at Vertus, at the south of the Côte. He could have added that the Côte de Sezanne, even further south, produces superb Chardonnay much better than its reputation (or its percentage). Moreover, there are two major jokers in the Chardonnay pack. The first consists of the very fine white grapes grown on the Montagne de Reims, notably Villers Marmery, at the very eastern tip of the montagne, wines which can vary from the earthy to the light and lemony, but which provide the blenders with the variety they need. Dom Ruinart is a good example of what delicious wines can be made from these mountain Chardonnays. The second joker is, less obviously, the Chardonnay produced at Mongueux west of Troyes.
THE FORGOTTEN QUARTET
In theory there are four other grape varieties legally permitted in the region – Fromenteau, Pinot Blanc, Arbanne and Petit Meslier – but only a few hectares of vineyards are planted with them. The boldest exponent is Michel Drappier in the Aube, who makes a few thousand bottles of a wine called Quattuor, from three of the four – plus some Chardonnay. His comments:
Arbanne: Elegant and mineral, unsurprisingly like a Chablis, a low-yielding local variety which has, according to Jancis Robinson, an ‘almost floral aroma’.
Petit Meslier: Looks like Riesling but as a wine rather resembles Sauvignon Blanc.
Pinot Blanc, or Blanc Vrai: Very Burgundian but peachy and a little richer.
Fromnteau: Like the Pinot Gris.
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53Champagnes made purely from black grapes are called blanc de noirs.
11
AND THE WINES
HARVEST TIME
Somewhere around the beginning of September the roads of Champagne are cluttered with a bizarre mixture of vehicles: special tractors, fearsome flails, weird cylinders whose function can only be guessed at. It is rather as though an army were preparing for war, rolling out all the specialized equipment required for the next campaign. By the end of September when the harvest is in full swing, every suitable tanker truck in France seems to be converging on Champagne. And a wide assortment of trucks and vans are shuttling loads of plastic paniers, each containing over a hundredweight of grapes, from the fields to the presshouses, and pressoirs.
Recently, not only the quantity but also the quality of the grapes has increased, due, of course to climate change. The average yield reached an astonishing 20,000 kilos a hectare in 2004, due almost entirely to the ever-increasing weight of the bunches of grapes – for their number hasn’t increased. The result is roughly the same number of grapes but far richer, juicier ones resulting in fruitier, more concentrated juice. Another, less obvious, improvement has been that the average age of the vines has increased from about fifteen to twenty-five years. Previously they used to be replaced at about thirty-five years because with age the yield decreased but today these older vines produce more concentrated, fruitier juice.
During the har
vest the vineyards are sprinkled with a strange collection of pickers working in small raggedy groups. The locals and their families mingle with miners and steelworkers on holiday (or, nowadays, grateful for any job, however temporary). The three weeks of harvest are inevitably tense, although the winemakers somehow manage to keep their tempers with the hordes of visitors attracted by the annual miracle of the transformation of grapes into wine.
The harvest is not, of course, exactly as it was. And perhaps we should be thankful for that. In the good old days the combination of overwork, tension – and drink – resulted in at least a couple of murders every year. Even today the weather usually increases the tension. Rain brings rot. But if the sun shines too fiercely, as it did in September 1986 (the temperature was up in the 30s) the grapes go floppy, losing up to a tenth of their juice. Early autumnal frosts helped check the rot that year, more rain simply spread it. Yet to the Champenois 1986 was just another average year.
One old habit that has, regrettably, vanished is to reject any bunches which show signs of rot – a process the locals call epluchage. Better methods of treating the juice to ensure that the wine will not be contaminated have combined with simple greed and the confidence that, since the juice is fermented off the skins, some superficial rot does not matter. The general lack of selectivity can also be justified by improvements in the winemaking, so that lower-quality grapes are now more acceptable. One of the few exceptions is Roederer, which, alone among major firms, can rely on its own grapes for four-fifths of its requirements. (Although all the better firms are particularly scrupulous with their own grapes which are destined for their finest quality wines. Moët’s vineyards, for instance, regularly yield 11 per cent less than the average.) The luxury – as it now is – of being able to eplucher their grapes provides Roederer’s winemakers with an enormous advantage, since virtually everyone else is having to cope with some rotten grapes. So Roederer can make at least some distinguished wine in a year like 1974, when the grapes were ripe but were picked in miserably wet conditions. In the words of Jean-Claude Rouzaud, who was then in charge of his family’s vineyards: ‘we reinforced our teams of grape pickers, in order, on the one hand, to pick more rapidly and, on the other hand, to be able to make a severe selection of the grapes and consequently to eliminate the bunches or parts of the bunches which had suffered from grey rot.’ The Cristal he made that year, when tasted in October 1986, was still full and delicious, the only hint of the problems a rather agreeable whiff of cabbage leaves on the nose.
The Story of Champagne Page 22