So, some notes: try blanc de blancs with shellfish: lighter wines probably with more Chardonnay are eminently suitable to accomany lighter dishes. Ordinary brut sans année can go well with chicken and even light game dishes such as, say, rabbit terrine. Try a vintage wine with hard cheeses provided they’re not too strong in which case avoid a champagne accompaniment. Demi-sec goes well not only with desserts but also with foie gras and even Asian food – indeed the Japanese have taken it to their hearts. And I can thoroughly recommend that you end the meal by drinking a fruity rosé with desserts like strawberry mille feuille, raspberries or macaroons.
DRINKING CHAMPAGNE
Any discussion of when and how to drink champagne (and not just to drink it, remember Diana Vreeland’s suggestion: ‘Rinse your blond child’s hair in dead champagne to keep its gold’) is bedevilled by snobberies of every description. For all the pretentiousness, it is important not to waste what will always be a special experience, not to drink champagne too casually. At the other extreme, you may be afraid that you will be judged by the sort of champagne you serve. No less an authority than Paul Krug remarked that ‘you distinguish your friends by the champagne you offer them’. You wouldn’t want to be caught offering the brand Steven Spurrier described as being ‘the sort of wine I drink only in aeroplanes’. Fortunately, in Britain anyway, the snob-barriers are breaking down. Drinkers are now interested in champagnes of every type, not necessarily obsessed by its cost or provenance.
THE DANGERS OF MIXING
For me champagne is, first and foremost, the finest of all aperitifs. The late Frank Prial invented a ‘Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Champagne’ as a warning to anyone who wants to mix it or to employ it as an accompaniment for food. In general I agree with him, about the mix bit anyway. Nevertheless, I enormously enjoy Buck’s Fizz, that extraordinary blend of champagne and orange juice invented in the 1920s by one Malachy McGarry, the barman at Buck’s Club founded by Captain Maurice Buckmaster. I’m fully aware that Bollinger was used in the original but I believe that it is a waste of good champagne. Better, surely, to employ some lesser sparkler (or a cheap champagne) and combine it with fresh orange juice, which makes more of a difference than the use of a higher-grade champagne The same applies to Black Velvet, champagne and Guinness, so accurately described by Evelyn Waugh as ‘that sour and refreshing draught’, surely the world’s best Sunday morning pick-me-up. With a groan I can accept the idea of a champagne cocktail provided that only cognac, that other noble product of the grape is used. But please forget any other mixture.
Some of the best advice on buying, serving and tasting champagne comes from Patrick Forbes. The insecure or novice buyer should ‘restrict his patronage to those firms that have great reputations to lose ... and he should always pay a price commensurate with the cost of production of a luxury wine.’ Since he wrote these words over forty years ago the ever-increasing buying power of supermarket chains has restrained the price of this particular luxury. In France, Germany and Belgium the chains have not been too conscious of quality but in Britain the supermarkets have to balance their eye for a bargain with the need to retain their reputations. The principle remains the same as when choosing between Krug and an unknown brand: you are relying on a firm which does not want to lose its reputation. But now the reputation is that of the intermediary, not the supplier.
I find most of the instructions relating to the serving of champagne faintly unreal. Wine writers simply do not understand how high a proportion of champagne is drunk – probably rather warm – out of paper cups, or sipped casually at wedding receptions. With luck the ever-increasing price of champagne – and the increasing awareness of the greatly improved quality of its imitators – will ensure that champagne is treated more respectfully.
These words will be greeted with raised eyebrows, but they sum up the essential paradox of champagne. No other wine half as expensive is drunk so casually and any wedding guest who asks for – say – a moment’s silence in which to toast the wine rather than the bride and groom will feel totally out of place. Yet champagne ought to be a fine wine, to be appreciated and savoured as such. And serving champagne, like any other fine wine, demands a few basic precautions, the more necessary because champagne is inevitably more delicate than most other wines and the conditions under which it should be served that much more crucial.
There is, to start with, as much danger in serving champagne too cold as too warm: 8–10°C provides the correct balance to release, but not freeze, the flavours and the bouquet.
Another key question is the type of glass into which to pour the wine. Over the centuries opinion has swung between two types of glasses, the coupe and the flute, both of which appear to have been dreamed up in Britain. The coupe allegedly modelled on the breasts of Madame de Pompadour (34B if you’re interested) arrived fifty years after the lady’s death and have, rightly, always been considered a fashionable gimmick reflecting a lack of interest in the wine itself – typically Marcel Proust’s vulgar character M. Bloch used coupes. They are not only ugly but they also break the basic rule in tasting any wine. The shape is bound to dissipate the aroma (as well, of course, as the bubbles). The flute, its narrow top perfectly adapted to appreciate the aromas of the wine, arrived first, certainly before 1789 and is depicted in many Bacchanalian scenes. Fortunately, since 1945 the coupe has virtually disappeared and the flute has become straighter.
Showmanship must be avoided when opening the bottle in order to preserve every last bubble, every last whiff of aroma. Again Patrick Forbes proves the best of guides: ‘Champagne, unlike still wines, appeals to all five of our senses; and the best way to judge its quality is to test methodically the extent of its appeal on each sense in turn. As the cork is removed a fragile puff of smoke should emerge from the bottle, spiral momentarily and disappear... begin with the eyes. Quickly, because it will soon disappear. Take a look at the white froth which is playing around on top of the wine. Is it snow-white? Does its agitation, its anxiety to vanish into thin air, convey an impression of force? If so, excellent.’
Next the colour. Above all it must be positive. A transparent uncoloured champagne is bound to be a negative wine, one made to avoid faults, not to enhance the positive qualities of the grapes. But do not follow the easy-snobby way and look for honeyed depth at all costs, for some of the finest champagnes have the light lemonjuicy look of light white wines, including many excellent modern-style unwoody Chardonnays. ‘Good champagnes,’ says Forbes, ‘vary in colour through a range of yellows which extend from straw through primrose and buttercup to bright gold and bronze. A hint of green is exciting; a tinge of brown is a danger signal, because it may mean the champagne is past its best.’
The bubbles – ideally small, regular, persistent – are also, of course, fizzy – their size depends not only on the wine itself, but also on the glass from which the wine is drunk, since the bubbles are released by the irregularities in the glass. ‘Next,’ Forbes writes, ‘put the glass close to the ear and listen to the minute crackling sounds made by the bubbles. It would be absurd to suggest that, by so doing, anything much can be learnt about the quality of the champagne, but it is fun to do so now and again... finally, proceed to the most important test of all; the impression the champagne makes on the palate, and its “feel” in the mouth.’ A good sip, a thorough slurp, noisy, vulgar, essential to absorb all the many sensations involved.
The first reaction of the palate should be one of delight at the cleanness and purity of the wine; this impression of cleanliness is a vital characteristic of champagne. Next a faint prickly sensation should register on the tongue and in the throat, for, although champagne should slide down the throat with the greatest of ease, it is ever meant to be soft and velvety like many a good still wine; the bursting bubbles should agitate the oral membranes and in so doing refresh and stimulate the drinker. Finally, the palate should become aware of the champagne’s exquisite taste, not too ‘grapey’, gloriously even in character,
but possessed of a slight tang that recalls the chalk from which it springs. A perfect champagne has one taste in the mouth and leaves another at the back of the throat after it has been swallowed; the biter, known as the farewell, is often more of a glow than a definite taste.
If that doesn’t leave you wanting to open a bottle immediately, then you will never learn to love champagne.
Forbes, rightly, stresses that any champagne can be drunk at any time – he claims that King Albert I of the Belgians regularly breakfasted off two poached eggs and a bottle of bubbly. While working on the first edition of this book I found myself thirsting for a glass in the late morning, not (I hope) as an alcoholic craves for a shot to keep him going, but because, like the Champenois themselves, I came to feel that any conversation on the subject was necessarily incomplete without, the raison d’être of the whole business. Modern champagnes, many of them with so much higher a proportion of Chardonnay than their predecessors, are that much more suitable as aperitifs – partly because the second fermentation lightens the wine, but also because Chardonnay’s reputation for heaviness is now a thing of the past because it was due largely due to the wood in which it is often matured.
Which is an appropriate point to end, and having ended, I can justify opening a bottle, carefully, so as not to waste the precious bubbles, pouring a glass to appreciate the delicacy of the colour, the power and fragrance of the nose and the fruitiness, the depth and length of the bouquet – and every good champagne, however different its style, shares these attributes – and drinking a toast to readers who have accompanied me on this voyage of discovery, hoping that it will induce them to reflect as they drink, not to become too absorbed in the geology, the history, the chemistry or the economics behind every bottle, but to appreciate the wine the better through understanding all the care and hard work lavished over the years on this, the most complex and most satisfying of all the many happy compounds made in concert by man, grape and nature.
13
THE FIRMS
There are over two hundred firms selling champagne, as well as thousands of recoltants-manipulants and an even greater number of Buyers’ Own Brands. Thus it is quite impossible to provide anything like a complete buyer’s guide. The following list is confined to the bigger firms and producers which can claim to have their own style of wine. I can provide only an inadequate, one-dimensional analysis. Better to look for the specific qualities of the fruit from which the wines were made. These qualities may induce non-fruit associations – as with the ‘warm bread’ feel of a pinot meunier, the ‘biscuity’, creamy feel of a chardonnay. Better to say, so this is the idea that Bollinger or Pol Roger have of the fruit from which they are making this delicious juice. And for me? Well I recognize the grandeur of Krug, but for everyday drinking (if there’s any such thing as an ‘everyday’ champagne) I prefer something rather lighter and more obviously elegant, like a Pol Roger, a Billecart-Salmon, a Taittinger or a Roederer.
Besserat de Bellefon
Allée du Vignoble, Reims
Tel: +33 (0)3 26 06 09 18
www.besseratdebellefon.com
Founded in 1843 by a M. Besserat, the company became famous between the wars under its present name (M. Besserat married a Mlle Bellefon) for its crémant wines. Since then, like many other medium-sized firms it has suffered from being repeatedly sold, first to Cinzano in 1959 and then to Pernod-Ricard in 1976. In 1987 it was bought by the Lanson-BCC Group who have improved the quality of the wines.
Billecart-Salmon
40 Rue Carnot, Mareuil-sur-Aÿ
Tel: +33 03 26 50 60 22
www.champagne-billecart.fr
Typical of the good small-scale family firm with its own special style. The family were local vineyard owners for three centuries before founding the firm in 1818. The firm fell into decay because of speculations by an American agent, but has been recovering since the 1920s (although it had to sell its vineyards to survive). They use a lot of Pinot Meunier in their non-vintage, and ferment all their wines very slowly at a mere 8°C in small vats to extract maximum fruit. As a result, all the firm’s wines, especially the rosé, share the same crisp, elegant fruitiness.
Boizel
16 Rue de Bernon, Epernay
Tel: +33 0(3) 26 51 21 51
www.boizel.com
Small family firm founded in 1818, long associated with the British firm of Hedges & Butler. In 1994 the family went into partnership with Lanson-BCC. Its shareholding enabled them to retain a good deal of independence and to continue to make fruity, soft, good value wines.
Bollinger
16 Rue Jules-Lobet, Aÿ
Tel: +33 (0)3 26 50 12 34
www.champagne-bollinger.com
A model family firm maintaining a proud tradition. Founded in 1829 by a young Wurttemberger, Joseph-Jacob-Placide Bollinger (later known as Jacques). He had worked in the trade for seven years before his father-in-law, the Comte de Villermont, asked him to sell his wines under his own name. The family has always made very ‘English’ wines, deep and firm and much loved by the aristocracy, a tradition which led to its use in the original Buck’s Fizz, made by the barman at Buck’s Club in London in the early 1920s. Bollinger (together with Krug) is still the champagne traditionally associated with the British royal family.
A later Jacques Bollinger died in 1942, and for thirty-five years the firm flourished under his widow, the legendary ‘Madame Jacques’. Childless, she concentrated her affections on the firm and its wines. After her death her nephew Christian maintained the family tradition. The key to the style lies first in the firm’s 141 hectares of vines, virtually all in premier or grand cru vineyards, mostly Pinot Noir on the Montagne and, naturally, round Aÿ. Only grapes destined for vintage champagne are now vinified in wood, but all the wines are big and fruity benefiting greatly from Bollinger’s massive stocks of vin de reserve, kept in magnums to enhance their qualities. For a short time in the early 1980s its basic wine, the Brut Special Cuvée, was sold too young, resulting in much-exaggerated complaints about unreliability and uncharacteristic sharpness. But for the past thirty years drinkers have been able to rely on its traditional quality of being a thoroughly satisfying, rich, biscuity wine. Bollinger reckons that vintage wines should be reserved for very special years in its Grande Années. Cannily the firm registered the letters RD to indicate a wine disgorged immediately before sale which helps older wines which are not going to improve greatly once taken off the lees. The RD is a model of the Bollinger style, thanks to the sheer richness and flavour provided by the extra time spent on the lees. Bollinger also produces tiny quantities of the Vieilles Vignes Francaises, made only from ungrafted vines on two tiny plots, one in Aÿ, one in Bouzy. The additional ripeness of grapes from vines grown packed together en foule makes the wine unforgettably rich, fruity, almost dense.
Alexandre Bonnet
138 Rue General de Gaulle
10340 Les Riceys
Tel: +33 (0)3 25 29 30 93
www.alexandrebonnet.com
One of the most distinguished firms in the Aube situated in the picturesque village of Les Riceys, it was founded by Serge Bonnet in 1960 and achieved fame in1987 when the TV presenter Bernard Pivot praised its wines as ‘Vins Gastronomiques’ (wines worthy of fine food), a rare tribute to wines from the Aube. In 1998 Bonnet’s family sold the firm to the Lanson-BCC group which has given the management the independence to sell half its production outside France and to launch excellent – but brave – wines like the Extra Brut with a mere 3 grams of sugar, giving it a decidedly Burgundian feel.
Armand de Brignac
Cattier
6/11 Rue Dom Perignon
Chigny-les Roses 51500
Tel: +33 (0)3 26 03 42 11
The first truly ‘blingy’ champagne. Introduced in 2006 by Cattier, the venerable owners of twenty hectares in the premier cru commune of Chigny-les Roses. Eight years later the brand was sold to Sean Carter, the hip-hop artist and impresario better known as Jay Z. The w
ines, naturally in metallic gold bottles, are excellent, rich and tangy, but priced accordingly.
Deutz
16 Rue Jeanson, Aÿ
Tel: +33 (0)3 26 55 15 11
www.champagne-deutz.com
Founded in 1838 by William Deutz and Pierre Geldermann, from Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen). Until 1983 it was controlled by descendants of a M. Lallier who had married a Mlle Deutz. It was then bought by the Rouzaud family who also own Roederer. They have allowed it the independence and financial resources required to improve an already-high reputation. The firm is still housed in its traditional premises on the Boulevard du Nord in Aÿ, which include a nineteenth-century drawing room so perfectly preserved that it is in great demand from film companies. Deutz owns 41 hectares of vines, mostly in Aÿ and the Haute Vallee de la Marne. The wines are ‘serious’ but also refreshing with a high percentage of reserve wines especially in its premium offering the Cuvée William Deutz, which is well balanced, long, vineux.
Drappier
Rue des Vignes
10200 Urville
Tel +33 (0)3 25 27 40 15
www.champagne-drappier.com
Old family firm based in Urville in the extreme east of the region near Colombey-le-Deux Egliss, home of a well-known customer, General de Gaulle. Their cellars originally housed the wines made by Saint Bernard de Clairvaux at the end of the twelfth century and the domaine was first exploited by the Drappier family in 1808. In the 1930s Georges Collet, the grandfather of the present chairman Michel Drappier was one of the first in the Aube to plant Pinot Noir. Today their wines have an excellent reputation – even their Brut Naturel without any dosage is rich and fruity. Since 2007 they have also offered Quattuor which includes the three other permitted varieties, Arbane, Petit Meslier and Pot Blanc as well as Chardonnay.
The Story of Champagne Page 27