Reaching Reims on Tuesday, April 24^th, proved much easier this time, and at 10am I was calling at the reception building of Champagne Veuve Clicquot. The VC estate takes up a large patch of land in southern Reims in the so-called quartier des grandes maisons, where Ruinart, Pommery, Heidsieck and other houses are also located. A young woman from the PR office took me on a tour of the buildings. Unfortunately due to renovation works the VC cellars are not visitable at the moment, so I had to limit myself to pictures. Some figures: the house currently produces a total of about 10 million bottles a year, one fourth of which comes from the 280 ha of own vineyards, the rest from purchased grapes. 6 pressing centres scattered throughout the Champagne allow for a quick pressing of the delicate grapes at harvest time, which sees c. 1,000 pickers working for Veuve Clicquot. In total there are about 70 different crus available for the house blenders, reaching an average of 97% on the Champagne appelation scale. There are usually around 50 crus in the Brut Carte Jaune, while the Grande Dame is composed exclusively of 8 grands crus owned by the maison. The NV Brut makes up 85% of the total production.

The company’s range is currently made up of three NB blends: the Brut, a Demi-sec and a limited series of the Brut Saint-Pétersbourg, made exclusively for the Italian market and including a minor proportion of wines aged in oak. There are three vintage wines: the Brut Reserve, Rosé Reserve and a wine called Rich Reserve, which sees a bit more dosage than a brut (28 g/l). Then there are the two Grande Dame cuvées de prestige, the standard white and the very limited Grande Dame Rosé. I expressed some curiosity about the St-Pétersbourg Brut of which I had never heard before, and was offered a glass:

Brut NV Cuvée Saint-Pétersbourg

Yeasty and vinous on the nose, there is an extra layer of strawberry, cognac and fruit liqueur that distinguishes it from the standard Brut Carte Jaune. It is also a bit more mellow on the palate, perhaps reflecting the fact that a part of the base wines for this are matured in large oak barrels. It still is very similar to the Brut, with just a minor shift of register in aromatics.

Then I met Cyril Brun and Jérôme Corbon, the maison’s two oenologues. They invited me to a very interesting tasting in the laboratory, featuring not Champagne, but different base still wines that are used to prepare the final blend, before the prise de mousse. My TNs:

Pinot Meunier Ville-Demmange 2000 (sample marked C624)

All wines were light straw with some green hues unless stated otherwise. Very yeasty nose, quite perfumed, but with a chemical character I identified as lanolin. Balanced on the palate, with medium acids, and slightly artificial aromas of aged wood. Quite drinkable, though a bit odd for a still wine.

Pinot Noir Verzenay 2000 (C353)

Nose of parsley, mushroom, some cardboard. Better structure in mouth, less funky perhaps than the previous wine, but also with a quite considerable amount of yeast. Long, with high citric acidity that lingers on the finish. An ager.

Pinot Noir Aÿ 2000 (C614)

Much more open nose of flowers and orange peel, less mineral than the Verzenay, also shorter on the palate and a bit diluted. Some acid here, Cyril Brun says it has more body, to me it is rounder, simpler and less interesting on its own.

Chardonnay Oger 2000 (C649)

Lighter and much greener in colour, also a bit cloudy. Soft nose of parsley and butter. Quite long, with lemon and lime juice on the acidic finish.

Pinot Noir Aÿ 1999 (C605)

Very yeasty, dirty nose of soaked cardboard. Vinous when this blows off, buttery or even creamy. Strongly structured in mouth, full body, with parsley and other leaves on the palate. Mr. Brun talked about some fruit but I noticed none.

Pinot Noir Aÿ 1998 (T288)

Darker golden in the glass, the darkest of all apart from the 2000 Aÿ. Amazing nose of a sweet wine, fig, peach, fruit liqueur or syrup, wild flower honey, with also some grass and licorice emerging. Palate has grass and freshly chopped parsley. Very nice length.

Pinot Noir Aÿ 1996 (T244)

Some mushrooms, a mineral backbone quite evident here, also some parsley and quince liqueur. Beautiful linear structure on the palate, with amazing length and a solid acidity. Citrus, ladies’ soap, finesse. Watch out when these 1996s are released.

Chardonnat Cramant 1999 (C643)

Yeast, some rotten aromas. Very juicy pear and lemon the palate, quite long. Nice wine.

Chardonnay Oger 1998 (T413)

Butter, honey, wax, some liqueur. Citric acid and leafiness on the palate, very good length. Also some garlic and parsley, medium acid. Less body and intensity than the 1999, but obviously more nicely perfumed. 1998 seems a fast-evolving vintage in these samples, but the wines had a charm quite amazing in the context of the tasting.

Then we tasted the house blend which is the still base for the Carte Jaune, being bottled now and so due to be released in three years.

Sample n. C406

The first impression is of a complete, quite vinous wine, slightly oxidized, with some cassis notes and a whiff of coffee. Some slate, parsley, stale butter, quite mineral on the palate. Quite broad, long and juicy. A bit watery attack, but has the structure of a serious wine.

And finally the finished product:

Veuve Cliquot Brut Carte Jaune NV (disgorged in March 2000)

A blend of 65% Pinot Noir, 15% Pinot Meunier, 20% Chardonnay. Quite buttery nose with some freshness, honey from the dosage, candied fruit, gingerbread, also the ubiquitous parsley. Vinous and full-flavoured on the palate, aromas of coffee, amaretto and old wood, with a dosage that I would qualify as quite high, a yeasty touch balanced by medium to high citrus acidity, and medium length. As nice as usually, if a bit on the simple side. What is so interesting here is that there is a huge change not only between the still wine samples and this, but also between this and the final still blend. I remarked, and Cyril and Jérôme happily agreed, that the greatest difficulty in making Champagne is not so much blending the different crus to make a balanced and complete whole, but guessing how this final blend with evolve during the three years of maturing sur lie, with the yeast autolysis and other chemical processes affecting the wine’s flavours. There is of course a huge difference between the single crus and the still blend, and I already admire the hard work put into creating the latter out of more than 50 crus to be every year the same (BTW Cyril and Jérôme mentioned that people think the most prestigious Champagnes are the most difficult to make, which is nonsense – ‘the Grande Dame takes us two or three days, while the making the NV is work for months). But the final Champagne seemed to me to have far superior harmony and integration than that final still wine. I must also mention that although I have had this wine dozens of time in the past, it probably never showed as well as on this occasion (is it the genius loci?).

We discussed vintages, starting with my high appreciation of the 1998 wines, which Cyril and Jérôme said will be a perfumed, soft and fast-evolving vintage. The 1999 will be much more structured and long-aged, a bit like 1995, according to them. 1996 remains the best vintage of the decade for now, with superior structure but also an aromatic richness that is quite similar to 1990. 2000 looks promising to Cyril, with a good balance between body and acidity and good, if not exceptional ripeness. There will be vintage wines made at Veuve Clicquot in 1998, 1999 and 2000, with probably La Grande Dame also made in all three vintages. Then Cyril opened an older bottle to give me an idea of a vintage VC’s evolution:

Brut Reserve 1990 (disgorged in September 1998)

Very vinous, quite evolved and oxidized, but still well alive, with honey, strawberry liqueur, some walnuts and butter on the nose. Coffee notes on the integrated palate, more liqueur which is transforming into an attractive red fruit gelée. Also some caramel, old wood, dried mushrooms, seems much drier actually than the Brut. Medium length, with some bitterness at the end. Clearly better than the Rich 1990 I had at home, and for which I enclose a TN:

Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin Rich Reserve 1990

From half-bottle, tasted at my sister’s place in Paris on the previous day. Modest mousse. Soft fruity brioche nose, some white flowers. Apple and pear compote on the palate, with a moelleux, marzipan/vanilla note. Also a tamed cognac character here. The dosage is more than evident here (I think there are about 28 g/l of sugar). Not too long, and medicinal on the finish. A peculiar style that seems more like a ‘dry’ than an ‘extra dry’ champagne to me. Obviously needs food, although this one was probably not perfectly stored.

After this very interesting tasting, for which I am very grateful, Cyril and Jérôme invited me to a very fine restaurant run by chef Fabrice Maillot (for those interested, the place is called Au Petit Comptoir, address is 17 rue de Mars, Reims). Brilliant service there, a fine wine list at prices that seemed very reasonable, and delicious cooking. I had a salad of chicken livers and snails with parmesan crust, a fantastic pink tuna steak with a vegetable julienne, and a finely tuned dessert of apple pie with a blue Fourme d’Ambert cheese ice-cream (what an excellent match). Also some brilliant wines with this meal, which are TN-ed in my ‘Miscellaneous wines’ post. Thanks to Veuve Clicquot for this visit, Cyril Brun and Jérôme Corbon are very skillful oenologues with a passion for all wine, not just Champagne.

I arrived a bit late to the small, but elegantly refurbished house that is office and reception building to Champagne Charles Heidsieck. I was greeted by PR manager Dominique Cima-Sander, who introduced me to the maison’s history and style. Unfortunately it was not possible to visit the cellars due to flooding, a consequence of torrential rains that had been ravaging throughout Northern Europe for the past months. So we proceeded to some tasting:

Brut Réserve Mis en Cave 1997 (disgorged Jan/Feb 2000)

Dark golden, with a tiny effervescence which is not aggressive in mouth. Huge, beautiful nose of tarte tatin, brioche, fresh butter, pâte sucrée, also quite fresh and leafy. Some honey, yellow flowers (jonquilles), green apple, ripe pear. On the palate there is thick acacia honey and apricot gelée, interesting balance between an opulent fruitiness and the vinous, evolved side. Gets yeastier with time in the glass, with a rotting pear note emerging. Excellent acidic backbone. Not extremely rich, but has some weight, and very perfumed on the palate also. The power comes out on the finish with more vinosity. Medium length. Sophisticated and complex, this is one of the best NV Champagnes I have tasted to date. Close to perfection.

Brut Réserve Mis en Cave 1995 (disgorged second half of 2000)

Very forward fresh pear at first, then some honey, more vinosity and yeastiness, some yellow fruit liqueur. Apricot, minor old wood note on the palate, much more evolved obviously. It is however a bit shorter than the 1997, a bit more aggressively acidic also, with a youthful, citric finish. Please note that this was tasted from a different glass than the 1997, not a flûte, more like a Riedel riesling glass. Both Champagnes are exactly the same blend of equal parts of Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay, with up to 50% reserve wines from up to six previous vintages, says Mrs. Cima-Sander. About 120 crus are included in this NV blend. The total production of Charles Heidsieck is of 2 million bottles a year.

We discussed Champagne as a gastronomic wine, and Mrs. Cima-Sander brought me two appetizers that she thinks match perfectly with the two wines I was tasting: a fat, decadent tarama from the Kaspia deli for the 1997, and an amazing aged Shropshire Blue cheese from Scotland for the 1995. As a side note, I noticed that all people I have been talking with in Champagne houses revealed a kind of ‘wine complex’, i.e. they always insist that Champagne is a wine, as if it weren’t obvious enough by definition. May be it has to do with the fact that most consumers, in France and probably elsewhere too, think of Champagne as something close to Coca-Cola in the bubbly pre-dinner drink department, although it is not an attitude I ever actually shared, be it only because I drink no Cola. There seem in fact to be a huge marketing campaign in operation to establish the image of Champagne as a normal table wine; in more than one place I have been given brochures or even sumptuously published books illustrating how well Champagne behaves at the dining table. As to the Charles Heidsieck tasting, both matches were adventurous and I confess I would never have dared them, but they worked quite well. Perhaps not epiphanous, but the fat texture and iodine flavours of the tarama seemed more delicate when pared with the candied fruit and citric acidity of the 1997. Even more interesting was the 1995 – Shropshire match, because they did not seem to overpower one another, and the immensely concentrated flavour of the cheese proved much more gentle than expected when matched with the briochey texture of the Champagne.

After the elegant mansion of Charles Heidsieck, the Piper bunker is quite a shocking change. It is here that package tours and other encumbrant visits are usually directed. Especially fun is the tour of the cellars, which is taken in an attraction park go-kart through a real ‘light-and-sound’ show unashamedly copied on some Disneyland features. The tasting room itself is a copy of a night-club bar, with psychodelic red lights adding to the fizzical experience. Mrs. Cima-Sander proceeded to give a yet another comprehensive tasting.

Brut NV (a blend of 50 crus with a varietal composition of 55% Pinot Noir, 30 Pinot Meunier, 10% Chardonnay, with 15% of reserve wines, aged for 18 months sur lie).

Fresh nose of gooseberry and white flowers, some pear and raspberry liqueur. A bit bitter on the palate, citric finish, pretty vague aromatically, but with good persistence and not bad at all I think for a 10-million-bottle Champagne.

Brut Rosé NV

Dark pink colour. Raspberry liqueur on the nose, strawberry, watermelon, some oak (?), but all in all a rather neutral nose. Overripe strawberry and cloying raspberry syrup on the palate, strongly alcoholic, very powerful for what it is. High, almost annoying dosage. Gets quickly to your head.

Brut 1995 (aged for 5 years sur lie)

Light golden colour. Stone fruit on the nose, peach mainly, with a whiff of citrus. Thick buttery brioche on the palate, lemon and ruby grapefruit on the finish, some liqueur sweetness from the dosage. Also a wild red apple (what we call ‘Paradise apple’ in Poland) note that I found quite in tune with the surroundings. Rather one-dimensional in its briochey character and sweetness, but not bad.

Brut Rare NV (aged for 7-8 years sur lie; this one is based on 1994 fruit mainly).

This wine used to be a vintage one and I remember a very convincing 1988, but Daniel Thibault now decided to make only a NV version. Same colour as above. More buttery and elegant nose. Round on the palate, still some brioche, more marked by Chardonnay I think. High acidity. The main difference with the 1995 is in the length, which is pretty good in this one. Just a bit of bitterness on the finish.

A house style marked by both a more present dosage than I am accustomed to and lightweight flavours of fresh stone fruit and brioche. There’s nothing wrong with this style in itself, of course, and I could imagine that these elements, if properly tuned and intensified, could make a quite convincing wine. But the obvious concern at Piper-Heidsieck is with the consumer base rather than the product itself, and the latter seems tailored to a company image associated with given sociological ideas and circumstances. Not wines I would care to buy, although this certainly will not affect Piper’s sales.

At this time I had had far too many wines (no spitting!) to wander around anymore, so I said goodbye to Mrs. Cima-Sander, whom I thank for the hospitality, and headed for the train station. My Champagne adventures were finished for this year, and I felt I had learned a great deal. As a bonus I am including some TNs for wines tasted at the Vinitaly fair in Verona:

Marek and yours truly arrived at the Giuseppe Menegalli stand early on Thursday, the first day of the show, to secure some Sassicaia for tasting. Menegalli is a large distributor who represents dozens of fine wine producers from around the world. What was our astonishment when we found out that three Bollinger wines were available for tasting! We did not hesitate a single minute of course.

Special Reserve NV

Medium to dark golden. Aggressive nose of Grammy Smith apple, supported by major yeastiness and a whiff of citrus. Intense mouthfeel, green apple aromas again, with quite high acidity and medium length. Powerful and expressive. Very good as always.

Grande Année 1992

The 1990 is a great wine in universal opinion, but a bottle opened in December was slightly disappointing, so I was quite curious about how the 1992 would show. Similar in colour to the above. Green apple again on the nose, with subsidiary notes of lilies, white peach, yeast, toasted bread, and minor Kenyan coffee. On the palate it is lighter, less vinous and more perfumed than the NV, with a strong acidic backbone and quite evolved aromas of old wood, some cognac, and of course green apple. The not-too-perfect vintage shows here in a rather lean structure, but it makes the wine more enjoyable at this stage I think. Very nice Champagne.

Récemment Dégorgé 1988 (disgorged end 2000)

Medium golden, with major green hues and an almost coppery rim. Extremely elegant nose of Granny Smith apple preserve, vanilla, lime peel, some brioche, not too powerful compared to the 1992. On the palate it is light as a feather, but quite intensely perfumed with green apple, pear, apricot, Apfelstrudel and vanilla custard. Almost silky in texture and very long indeed. Impeccably tailored wine with major grace and elegance. What a treat to be able to try this! At the French market price of 500F / $70 it is I think quite an attractive QPR.

Regards from Poland,

Nerval