Debate a Bubble - Champagne Prices and 'Vins Sur Lattes'

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Champagne Prices and 'Vins Sur Lattes' Posted: 19 Apr 2011 11:35 PM PDT Learning about the more obscure terminology to do with champagne is not everyone's cup of tea, but when it has a direct bearing on the price of champagne it's worth discovering the basics, so here's a brief explanation of what 'vins sur lattes' are and what that has to do with the price of champagne. The 'lattes' are the  thin batons of wood placed between each layer of bottles when they are stacked in the cellars for ageing. The lattes are there partly to stabilise the stacks, to seperate the bottles and make them easier to handle, but more importantly they are there to prevent too much damage if a bottle were to explode and that does occasionally happen. There is about 6 atmospheres of pressure inside a bottle of champagne, enough to put a strain on even the strongest bottle but if there is the slightest fault in the glass the bottle can quite easily explode. When this happens the vibrations are passed on to the next bottle and the next so you could end up with  a chain reaction and dozens of broken bottles. The lattes act as a dampener and they prevent this chain reaction so that if one bottle goes, the ones next to it aren't affected. Usually a champagne maker will leave his or her bottles many years 'sur lattes' whilst the bubbles form and the flavours develop. However, it's an expensive business to have all that stock tied up and not selling, so in times of financial crisis, such as we've just gone through, champagne makers sometimes sell off lots of 'vins sur latte' before they normally would do, just to get some cash in. Don't forget that these champagnes are not yet ready to be sold. So the buyer still needs to disgorge the bottles, have the dosage added, and have them corked and labelled before they can be sold, so there is quite a bit of work to do on them. Nevertheless, even with this work to do, buying 'sur lattes' can be a good way to buy up inexpensive lots to sell on at bargain prices and many of the supermarket champagnes or other champagne bargains that you have seen in the shops probably come from this sort of deal. The down side is that when you buy a job lot of vins sur lattes it's a one-off deal and there's no guarantee that there will be any  left if you go back for more. Equally the price varies according to the going rate at the time. Over the past few years, there have been some good bargains to be had on this market, but now most champagne makers have seen the worst of their financial problems and have little, or no, need to sell off vins sur lattes, or at least not at rock bottom prices. You can discover more about vins sur lattes, and what a good alternative buy could be, at this link http://www.mymaninchampagne.com/MMIC-Blogs/champagne-prices-on-the-up.html

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Debate a Bubble - New Gosset Vintage Launch

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New Gosset Vintage Launch Posted: 04 Apr 2011 03:38 AM PDT Good and bad marks for Gosset. First the good: Congratulations to Gosset on launching their Vintage 2000 This means that the champagne has had about 10 years ageing in the bottle, on the lees. That's a long time and much longer than many vintages champagne houses keep their vintages, so well done to Gosset. What I was much less impressed by was the announcement and tasting notes. Just exactly the same as you and I have read a thousand times and there is nothing in the entire text to differentiate this champagne - which I imagine is terrific - from a thousand other champagnes. What a pity and how boring. When will champagne houses learn to say something interesting that actually engages the consumers instead of trotting out the same old same old ??? Here it is below - judge for yourself: Champagne Gosset has launched its latest vintage. The year 2000 was an exceptional one; after being shaken by severe hailstorms in May and July, the Champagne vineyards regained their vigour with the arrival of perfect summer with warm and dry conditions, which extended right through to the harvest.   Champagne Gosset Grand Millesime 2000 is a reflection of the quality of the soil in the region and has taken the finest grapes from the best vineyards: the result is certainly worthy of the Grand Millesime title. The new vintage is the first in the new livery and packaging, recently updated in line the company's commitment to sustainable development. A blend of 57 per cent Chardonnay and 43 per cent Pinot Noir, on first inspection it is clear, luminous and crystalline yellow gold spangled.  An abundance of sparkling bubbles form a thin, yet steady and persistent flow. On the nose it is delicate, elegant and rich with strong notes of deliciously ripe fruits such as mango, pineapple, lemon, molten honey and apricot and a gentle note of spring flowers like hawthorn, camomile and jasmine. On tasting, it initially displays freshness, dominated by the majestic mark of the Chardonnay. There are lively and complex notes of the same pineapple, apricot and mango, but with a hint of hazelnut, and a pleasantly long and elegant finish.  The wine's consistency and richness is a sign of its maturity – perfectly balanced sweetness emphasised by a judicious and necessary 'under dosage'. It is the perfect partner for poultry with a rich sauce and crisp young vegetables. It is an excellent aperitif, but also has the structure and power to accompany a whole meal.

More To Champagne Than Just Champagne. Part 1 Posted: 03 Apr 2011 03:19 PM PDT People thinking of visiting Champagne often wonder if there is anything else to do here except visit champagne makers and drink champagne. Well in fact there is loads to do and something to suit almost all interests and all ages. Here are a few ideas... First you can download a free guide to What to Do In Champagne by going here www.bedandbreakfastinchampagne.com and you'll also find information about our bed and breakfast accommodation in Champagne Next, If you like walking then you're in luck. There's a disused railway line running for a long way all around the side of La Montagne de Reims and it's terrific place to walk. In actual fact it's part of the long distance pilgrimage trail that runs all the way to Saint Jacques de Compostel in Spain. Several people undertake this marathon for religious reasons, but others do it just for personal satisfaction If you're tempted to have a go it'll take you about 3 months in total and you can start from Canterbury, Aachen and a few other places accordingto which country you live in. If you do come along be sure to stay at our B & B in Verzy; we're only about 200 metres from the trail and we get a lot of wakers staying with us There's not much evidence that there was ever a railway here but there are one or two things you can spot. Here's the old station in Verzenay that someone has converted into their home The trail is well sign-posted and ( famous last words) it's hard to get lost so you can wander to your heart's content. As you walk the path takes you between the vines and the forest that covers the top of the so-called Mountain of Reims ( it's only 200 metres high or so) and you get some great views. You can one below   Then there's mountain biking, or VTT as they call it here ( Vélo Touts Terrains). There a real honeycomb of trails through the vines and forest, all marked out with coloured arrows on the trees indicating the level of difficulty as well as the direction so there's something to suit just about everyone. In the hunting season you have to watch out for the hunters and their guns, but again the signs are clear as you can see below. All the arrows sensibly pointed in one direction : away from  La Chasse. I think I get the message Just to show you that I'm not just making this up, below is a short video to close showing some mountain bikers who came along just at the right moment. In the next post I'll tell you about some more of the lesser-known attractions of Champagne

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Debate a Bubble - How Do I Find a 'Good' Champagne

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How Do I Find a 'Good' Champagne Posted: 01 Apr 2011 04:18 AM PDT Well, the first thing that you have to say is that 'Good' is a personal judgement and so if you find a champagne that you like and think is good, then that's fine. Having said this there are one or two pieces of information that give you an indication of the quality and the more of these little pointers you have, the better equipped you are to make your own judgement.Today let's take a look at the age of the vines. It's not often that champagne makers will tell you the age of their vines - it's considered a bit too technical for most people I suppose, but it does have a bearing on the quality of the champagne and occasionally you may find this information amongst the blurb that the maker hands out. When they are young vines are full of energy and grow like crazy, producing  lots of fruit. More fruit means more champagne. As they get older they lose some of that energy and produce less fruit, but make up for it by producing grapes that have more intensity of flavour and aroma and this means champagne of higher quality. A vine can live for decades - 50 years and more is not unheard of - and  a vigneron needs to manage his various plots of land so as to have a good balance between young and old vines: too many young vines and the champagne may lack depth; too many old vines and there won't be enough grapes, so he or she will constantly be uprooting old vines when the yield has become so low as to be uneconomical and planting new vines that need a few years before they produce a viable crop worth harvesting I was reading a description of Henriet-Bazin champagne the other day in which it was mentioned that the average age of the vines used was 26 years. That's pretty high because it means that there must have been some vines older than that, probably considerably older, so it's an indication that the champagne will be big on flavour. It's difficult to give any specific guidelines on what constitutes the 'right' age for a vine to produce good champagne but you can bet that if a vigneron bothers to tell you the age of the vines at all then they will have something worth boasting about. As a rule of thumb though, an 'old' vine will be 40 or 50 years old. So that's one more fascinating fact to consider when looking for a 'good' champagne In the pictures below you'll see the various cycles of the vine from a few weeks right through to the end of its life. Do leave a comment or question below if you want New vines just planted - look for the rows of tiny red shoots             The young vines are covered in red wax to protect them from diseases and bugs                       Vine a few years old with a fairly thin stem               A venerable old vine, maybe 40 or 50  years old with a thick, knarled stem             Everything uprooted to start all over again

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Debate a Bubble - How Old Is My Champagne?

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How Old Is My Champagne? Posted: 27 Mar 2011 01:34 AM PDT Here's a picture of the label from a bottle of Champagne De Sousa Réserve - a great champagne from a superb maker. Don't worry if you don't know this brand; you can find out in a later post, but today I wanted to use this example to talk about how long champagne is aged and how you can tell. Ask most people about wine and they probably say that the older it is, the better it is. That's not necessarily true, but before you can begin to make any judgement the first thing you have to know is how old is the wine in the first place. It sounds obvious and if there's a particular vintage year indicated on the label  - which is the case for most still wines - that's a big help, but when it comes to champagne things are a bit more tricky because most champagne has no date on the label. That's because it's 'non-vintage' i.e. it's a blend of wines from several years. So what are the other pointers to look for? Things can get even more unclear with champagne because there are two distinct ageing periods that you need to take into consideration: the time spent ageing in the bottle before it leaves the cellars in France and also the time from then on until  you actually drink it. This post is mainly about the second of these periods. Before getting on to that let's just mention the first bit: the time the champagne spends ageing in the bottle before it leaves the cellars. During this time the 'lees' (the yeast sediment) are still inside the bottle and they play a important role in how the champagne matures. The minimum time a champagne must spend ageing in the bottle 'on the lees'  is 15 months, but this is hardly time enough to allow the champagne to acquire any real quality so most reputable champagne brands, the Moëts and the Veuves of this world, will tell you that they age their champagnes for  2 -3 years. The trouble is they don't indicate on the label exactly how long and since there's quite a difference between 24 and 36 months, you're none the wiser from just looking at the bottle. Since that bit is outside your control anyway, let's turn our attention to the other ageing period which is something you can influence and that's the time from when it's taken out of the cellar until you buy the bottle and then drink it. Just before a bottle of champagne leaves the cellars to be sold, the yeast sediment is removed in a process called disgorging ( dégorgement in French). This is a crucial step in the champagne making process because, once that yeast sediment has gone, the champagne enters a different phase of maturing, so knowing the date of disgorging is pretty important. The general rule of thumb that I have been always given by people here in Champagne is that you can keep champagne, after disgorging, for about the same length of time as it spent ageing before disgorging.  So let's say between 2 and 3 years. After that the champagne will deteriorate and will eventually not be worth drinking. Yes of course this is a generalisation, but unless you have a really good cellar and really know what you are doing then it's not a bad rule to go by. Sounds simple enough then. Find the date of disgorging, count forward a couple of years and that's all you need to know. But where do you find that disgorging date? Unfortunately this is another piece of information that very few brands actually share with you. Quite why they don't is another long discussion but fortunately there are a growing number of champagne producers, mainly amongst the smaller ones like De Sousa, who have the good sense to put the disgorgement date on the bottle, as in this picture. This bottle was disgorged on 22nd March 2010, so when I drank it on 21st March 2011 I knew  it was one year since the disgorging and the champagne should be just right to drink - it was by the way. On the other hand if I was in a shop on 21st March 2014 and was thinking about buying this bottle, I'd know that it had been hanging around quite a long while since disgorging and would probably have lost some of its freshness. I'd think twice before buying it unless I knew for sure that it had been kept in perfect storage conditions. Then, but only then, I might give it a try. So look out for the disgorgement date somewhere on the label. You may not always find it, in fact it's still only a minority of makers who do put this date on their bottles, but it is becoming more common and one day it might even become the norm.

Champagne - The bits you don't get to see Posted: 26 Mar 2011 12:41 PM PDT It's been a glorious week here in Champagne with the sun shining all day and the promise of Spring just around the corner.  As you can imagine, there's been lots of activity in the vineyards and I love seeing what's going on at first hand as I take my dog for a walk in the vineyards at the end of the afternoon. Today I spotted something I had never seen before and it got me thinking about all the things that go into the making of champagne that, as a consumer, you never get to see, or even think about. There's a huge amount of work that's needed in the vineyards. It takes around 200 hours per hectare  (just over 2 acres) just to do the pruning and that's just one of the many tasks that have to be carried out. Anyway, back to today. I came across one solitary figure walking back and forth along the rows of his vines. "What is he doing?", I wondered and my curiosity was all the more piqued by the sound that came drifting across the vines  from his direction - a bit like the rythmic sound of maraccas being shaken to a very distinct beat. "Surely he's not practising his Latin American dancing?" Sure enough he wasn't 'salsa-ing' his way along the vines. In fact he was spreading fertiliser. I've only ever seen this done by tractor, but here was a guy doing it all by hand in the same way that his father and even grandfather must have done it years ago. The maracca-like sound was him taking a handful of fertiliser pellets with every step he took and scattering it, first to the left, then to the right,  with each step he took. He was a really chatty chap as well and was only too happy to stop and have his picture taken. "The fertiliser is all natural", he explained although he was insistent that my dog, Pepper shouldn't try eating it. He was using equipment that looked as if it hadn't changed in years. A curved sort of bucket that attached to a harness strapped round his chest. Then it was just a question of dipping into the bucket as he walked along the rows of vines. Left hand, scatter. Right hand, scatter. Simple, but effective. "I've got all this to spread" he said gesturing to the back of his van where there were several bags waiting to be opened, "so I'll keep going till it gets dark." I left him to it after a few minutes, but it struck me that how much work is needed to make champagne, that most of us never realise. No wonder it's not cheap. More news soon from here in the Champagne vineyards and if you have any questions, then do leave a comment and I'll get back to you

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