Champagne to buy now, enjoy later. Or now
It’s a good time to buy quality Champagne at a reasonable price. Now that’s a cause for celebration.
To say times are tough in Champagne is a masterful understatement. I have long argued that its wines are underpriced when compared to those of Burgundy and Bordeaux. In his masterwork The Champagne Guide 2020-2021, Tyson Stelzer summarises the situation thus: “Vineyard prices are up more than fivefold in 25 years. Grape prices are up 80 per cent in 15 years. Champagne has the highest cost of production in the wine world. Yet the price of a bottle of Champagne has risen less than 15 per cent in the past decade.”
Exquisite paradoxes abound as Champagne seeks to reinvent itself, but it seems to come back to one thing: excessive yields. In a suffocating environment of bureaucratic controls, the maximum permitted yield in 2018 was 10.8 tonnes per hectare but just to be sure, an additional 4.7 tonnes was promptly added. Champagne has the most expensive vineyards in the world, and the highest average grape prices. Those grape prices are mandated, based on the rank of the vineyard – grand cru, premier cru or neither.
A vicious circle, or a dog chasing its own tail? Either will do. If prices are preordained, a grower will be tempted to chase yield, not quality. Lurking in the shadows are inheritance taxes of 45 per cent; producers must make as much money as they can so their children can afford to pay them. So the paradox (in Australian eyes) is that the large houses are moving to organic/biodynamic viticulture and restricting yields – increasing the cost of the resultant wine, but with higher quality, especially in wet years. An even stranger development is that in the warmest vintages some producers are looking back to 1860, when more table wine (Coteaux Champenois) was made than sparkling.
The take-out is to buy (and drink over Christmas) the profiled wines before the dog catches its tail.
NV Vve Fourny & Fils Blanc de Blancs Brut Vertus Premier Cru
The base wine spends 7 months on lees, 75% in used oak vats. Three consecutive vintages of the base wine are blended with 20% reserves, 2+ years on tirage, the 6g/l dosage perfect. Offers a lively profusion of white nectarine and peach; delicate, fresh finish. Ideal Christmas cheer. 12% alc, Diam
95 points, $80
NV Louis Roederer Brut Premier
This is a 40/40/20% blend of chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier, 15% fermented and matured in oak, 30% mlf, 10% reserves from five vintages, 3 years on tirage, 9g/l dosage. Has a flowery/spicy bouquet, the palate with complex citrus and hazelnut flavours, supple mouthfeel, and a great finish and aftertaste. 12% alc, Diam
95 points, $85
NV Devaux Ultra D Aged 5 Years
A 55% pinot noir, 45% chardonnay blend, with 35% reserve wines, on tirage for 5 years, with a low dosage of 3g/l. The complexity is as expected for a wine built thus, likewise its balance and length, the harmony and finesse singularly impressive. 12% alc, cork
94 points, $90
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I was not only confident that I would dislike this car, I was certain I would find it offensive, and was looking forward to giving it the kind of review that burns off eyelids in a PR department. I was in for a surprise.
This brilliant burnt Basque cheesecake comes with a twist
Deceptively simple, that deeply burnished crown, almost charred, gives way to a creamy interior, intentionally undercooked, so that each bite slides between lightness and density.