Sunshine in a glass

MOET dominates the Australian chanpagne market, with a 46 per cent share, and its 2002 vintage is especially grand.

Moet

THE drive to Champagne is beautiful. Dandelions, tall grass and crooked mesh fences line the gentle, rollercoaster highway, the clement greenery so unlike Australia's harsh scrub.

The trees are high on both sides of the road and, when they clear, fields lay out across the landscape like carpet. It is some of the most valuable land, per hectare, on earth, every so often interrupted by stone farmhouses or stables. No livestock. Just corn, and then, eventually, grapes.

Elsewhere in the world this open landscape, right off an impressionist canvas, or from Birdsong or Inglourious Basterds, would have long ago succumbed to urban sprawl (French farmers can thank EU agriculture subsidies). In its lush state it’s hard to fathom that here, 1500 years ago, the Romans turned back Attila the Hun and, a millennium later, still in a pre-bubbles era, that monarchs and popes of Europe clamoured for their own plot of wine heaven.

There are two large towns in the region: Reims – the home of Ruinart and Veuve Clicquot – and Epernay, where the sweeping estate of Moet & Chandon awaits. Moet was born right here on this plum High Street plot and they haven’t moved an inch. Since Claude Moet came to town in 1743 and established La Maison Moet, Epernay has had quite a few visitors of note: Napoleon, the conquering hero returning from Prussia; emperors Alexander I of Russia and Francis II of Austria; King Louis XVIII and Queen Victoria all paid their respects to the emerging enigma of Moet champagne. “It is very important to us to be close to where everything started,” says our host and the maitre de maison, Pierre-Louis Araud. “This is the family’s home.”

It’s not the oldest of the champagne houses. Gosset, which started as a still winery in the 1500s came first, while Ruinart says it was the first to produce bubbles in 1730, followed closely by Taittinger (1734), Moet and then Clicquot (1772). Nevertheless, Claude Moet and his son Claude Louis-Nicolas were quick to evangelise the new varietal in the 1740s, shipping it with great haste to Paris where it became a hit in the court of Louis XV, in large part due to Madame de Pompadour, the king’s mistress and trusted adviser on all matters of style and frivolity. She declared it “the only wine that leaves a woman beautiful after drinking”. Her endorsement, certainly cheaper and probably more effective than Scarlett Johansson’s [the current muse for the champagne], gave Moet priceless cachet and an immediate cult following among the wealthiest Parisian ladies.

Now, you don’t keep a family business booming for 250 years without a few half-capable progeny along the way, and it would be remiss not to mention a couple of stand-outs on the family tree. In 1813, one of these – Jean-Remy Moet – assumed control of the business. Not content with its strength in the French market, he travelled across the Continent, quickly establishing Moet as the official supplier to the royal courts of England, Spain, Belgium, Sweden and Denmark. Oh, and the Vatican, where the Pope and his cardinals were certainly not living by the letter to the Ephesians 5:18 [“Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery”].

Jean-Remy served as mayor of Epernay and became a close friend of Napoleon Bonaparte, to whom he dedicated his Brut Imperial, still the house’s staple. The Great Emperor reciprocated by bestowing on Jean-Remy the Legion d’Honneur. It was Jean-Remy who commissioned the estate’s most iconic buildings, the identical mansions Residence de Trianon and the Chandon Mansion, both completed in 1817. Before construction was complete, however, Napoleon’s forces were retreating deep into western France, exposing Jean-Remy’s cellars to looting Cossacks. He couldn’t have been happier. “All these officers who are ruining me now will make my fortune in the future,” he accurately predicted. “Those who are drinking my wine are also travellers who will spread the name of my house when they return to their countries.”

The Chandons entered the picture when Jean-Remy’s daughter Adelaide married Pierre Gabriel Chandon in 1816. Adelaide inherited Trianon in 1833 (both mansions were badly damaged by German air raids during World War I but rebuilt) and it is there, in the President’s dining room, wallpapered with cobalt blossoms and green boughs, where lunch is still served to the lucky few.

The anteroom’s glass doors are flung open to a May breeze; a patio overlooks the Orangerie and its champagne cork-shaped garden and pond, over which Scarlett is now floating on a billboard near you. Moet & Chandon goes to great lengths to protect the anonymity of its guests, here only by invitation. On this particular day they range from a major Asian hotelier to a senior figure in the British arts community: strangers, united only by a fervid familiarity with the flute – and not the kind played by Ron Burgundy. Executive chef Bernard Dance dishes up courses that include asparagus and smoked salmon pastry with curry sauce, roast John Dory fillet and currant pudding.

“Usually, a restaurant chooses their wine to match the food,” Araud observes. “Here we choose the champagne vintage and our chef creates a menu to fit with it and to create a perfect balance between the two. The sugar level is critical in matching foods because of course champagne has much sugar as well. If food is too sugary it kills the taste of the champagne.” Dance agrees: “That is the most difficult thing. With our NV rose I’ve used desserts like red pepper sorbet or tarragon ice cream or fennel in creme brulee – champagne works really well with these.”

Surely though, pairing champagne and beef is a cardinal sin, even for the most avid worshipper of bubbles, I humbly suggest, only to be shot down faster than the duck I’ve just eaten in my apricot hors d’œuvre. “No, no! The 2003 rose is superb for beef,” Dance insists. “Think of a French beef burger with foie gras. And the 2002 rose is ideally suited to veal and duck. Remember that 20 per cent of this varietal is pinot.”

The 2003 Grand Vintage, we’re told, was the product of a special year. Europe experienced a severe heatwave. French babies, British grannies, unprepared for sunshine and unequipped with airconditioning, dropped like flies. “It was a very, very hot summer. We had an early harvest on 21 March and the grapes were very ripe,” says Araud.

“But also there was a spring frost so 80 per cent of the chardonnay was ruined. Nobody else released a vintage but for Moet a vintage is not all about acidity – ripeness can work. We wanted to show the style of the year and so the 2003 is a mix of ripe white fruits, it’s got real spiciness and you can taste much more of the pinot meunier.”

As white-gloved waiters pour from magnums of the stuff, Araud apprises us of the vines’ trials and tribulations, defenceless against the elements, and the extreme fragility of each annual harvest. “Frost comes to Champagne in spring when the temperature falls below zero and that can be very dangerous because it attacks the buds. This year in April we lost 25ha in two days of frost, although it is not so much in the scheme of things.” That much is true – of the 34,000ha that are officially part of Champagne, Moet grapes occupy 1300 of them, the most of any house.  Plus, Araud beams proudly, “2002 was the perfect year.

The Grand Vintage spent seven years in the cellar and it is truly sunshine in a glass. It was the first time that Moet and [its prestige vintage champagne label] Dom Perignon released a vintage from the same year.”

This is a business where lead times are long, where very tough conditions are weathered and seen off, and where not much changes fast. The first great test was mastering production – in the first half of the 19th century 60 per cent of the bottles would either explode in the cellar or spoil on ships. Business was hurt badly by two world wars and the Great Depression in between. Then came the growing pains of transforming from a family entity to a publicly traded stock in 1962, as well as acquiring or merging with competitors Ruinart and Mercier, Hennessy & Co and Christian Dior parfums. In 1987 Moet Hennessy joined forces with Louis Vuitton to form the world’s largest luxury conglomerate, LVMH.

LVMH is the parent of six champagne brands: Moet, Veuve Clicquot, Ruinart, Krug, Dom Perignon and Mercier, the latter produced exclusively for the UK market. Each pitches its appeal and brand to different markets and segments: Clicquot is strongest in the US while Moet dominates in Australia with 46 per cent share.

Of course the GFC of 2008/09 was a thorny patch for brands reliant on discretionary spending. “It was a difficult but fast recovery,” says a visiting Moet-Hennessy marketer from Singapore. “In Japan, which is the biggest Dom Perignon market, we were hurt very badly; in Singapore we booked a 10–15 per cent decrease in volume. People were buying two months of stock instead of a year’s worth.”

Stretched out beneath us is 28sqkm of cellars, sheltering something in the vicinity of 100 million bottles, the temperature controlled at between 10C and 12C. The tenebrous passageways are lined with timber A-frames loaded with dusty, upended bottles and the walls are humid and spongy. In Champagne, 80 per cent of the soil is chalk, which soaks up excess water at the surface level and can filter it upwards when it is driest. The vast majority of these bottles will be Brut Imperial and will move quickly into the market. The Grand Vintages, however, are not so plentiful. The first GV in 1842 has been followed by a subsequent 68, many of which have spent more than 50 years down here. The oldest surviving vintage is the 1892 – there are 50 bottles left. “Nothing can replace the work of time,” says Marc Brevot of Moet’s oenology department.

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A SHORT  drive from the town, on a rise encircled by vines and the old men who walk the paths amid them, is Chateau de Saran, originally Jean-Remy’s weekend hunting lodge but now a private residence where Moet & Chandon hosts its special visitors, whom they ply with roe and anchovies and the 2002 GV sunshine in a glass. The house is incandescent with flowers – magenta snapdragon and peach, cream and orange roses. The maitresse de maison is Helene Feltin, a former executive at French hotel group Sofitel.She almost floats across the floorboards and in between the floral arrangements.

“A lot of people visit us,” she says at dinner. “More and more love champagne so we cannot resist!” Guests are mainly from Western countries and Japan, although there are increasing numbers of Moet’s VIPs visiting from China, India, Brazil, the Caribbean and Russia. With ambassadors, ministers, journalists, celebrities, major suppliers and other assorted lushes, Feltin has an exacting schedule as the head of a year-round bacchanal. “We live in our time here,” she says, “but of course we’re trying to preserve the heritage.” This is clear in the abundant beaux-arts drapes, the white shutters and, through them, the precisely tapered hedges. A grand piano is guarded soberly by surrounding portraits.

Once again the waiters circle, proffering salted meat and other offerings heavy on juices and stocks, light on vinegar that could endanger the champagne’s enduring flavour. Stepping into the courtyard garden for a nicotine refreshment, I notice a car high-beaming over the hill in the distance and a profound, humming, windy quiet.

In the morning, hurtling me from my torpor, is the thudding sound of a passing train. I throw open the windows to the valley and the horribly cheerful day. Bees buzz, wind turbines turn in the distance, a van with back doors open stands in the vineyard. It is precisely how you expect it to look, sound and smell, which in no way lessens its grandeur or profundity. Yet bleary eyes prevail and I remember a remark from the previous evening. “If you do not know what you want to drink, ask for champagne,” Feltin had said. “You will never be disappointed. It is good for breakfast, brunch and lunch; for dinner, for a party or for an after-party.” Inspired, I set out to find a waiter.