WTN: Vrai Champagne

[Brad Ballinger]

These are notes that are from the charity wine tasting I conducted as a result of my wife placing it as an auction item in a fundraising event for a non-profit for which she is on the board. What was auctioned off as a wine tasting for eight somehow turned into a Champagne tasting for 30.

The title of this post is Vrai Champagne, and these were all Champagne from Champagne.

The first four wines listed below were placed around the house. The Feuillate was the welcome/toasting wine. The Peters was paired with caviar and fixins. The Tarlant was placed with pate and cheeses. There was also lobster tail and a fresh foie gras terrine in between the two food stations. The Veuve Demi was served with a persimmon and golden raisin galette. The final four wines listed below were wines I was pouring at a tasting station. I featured these because they are wines that cannot be purchased at a retail store in Minnesota. I'm grateful to Gary Westby at K&L Wines for helping me with the wines at the tasting station.

NV Champagne Nicolas Feuillatte Brut. This wine is a blend of 40% pinot noir, 40% pinot meunier, and 20% chardonnay from premier cru vineyards, and produced by a grower cooperative. Their press release sheet brags it’s the perfect wine for an aperitif, and it was the right choice for aperitif on this particular evening. I’ve always liked this wine for its nutty qualities it shows in its aroma and on the finish, which adds a dimension of complexity to the bright and fruity apple and golden fig flavors. A delicate mousse helps it go down effortlessly.

NV Champagne Pierre Peters Cuvee Reserve Blanc de Blancs Brut. Made from 100% chardonnay grown on estate vineyards. As soon as I pulled the first cork, I could smell the dough rising. This wine is a zinger – and a conundrum. With one sip, it’s a sleek mineral-driven wine, typical of the style of Pierre Peters. With another, it shows powerful citrus and tropical fruit. It shows finesse and power at the same time. It’s a rose in a fisted glove.

NV Champagne Tarlant Cuvée Louis Brut Prestige. The grapes for this wine come from the producer’s own vineyards around Oeuilly, a tiny dot of a town in the Vallée de Marne. The wine is made from 50% chardonnay and 50% pinot noir. It is partially fermented in oak, and aged in oak for 13 months and then on its lees for seven years before being released. This wine has incredible depth and complexity, showing spices, some dried apples, and toasted bread. It was the "deepest" and most "muscular" wine of the evening, stylistically. Astonishingly, it was also the least emptied of the non-tasting wines.

NV Champagne Veuve Clicquot Demi-Sec. Made from 50% pinot noir, 30% pinot meunier, and 20% chardonnay. At least 50 individual wines are blended to make this cuvée. The final dosage in this wine contains 45 grams of sugar per liter (as opposed to generally between 8-12 grams for Brut wines). The marketing folks at Vueve bill their demi-sec as “classic accompaniment” to dessert. So we’re also taking them at their word. Oddly, though, whenever I’ve had this wine, it has not been with dessert. I think it makes a nice aperitif and a great partner to cheeses. Although sweet, it still maintains a delicate balance and shows of pastry crust and fruit-soaked bread in its flavor profile. The dessert it was paired with muted the sweetness of the wine. But when I had the wine with gratte paille cheese, it was a great match.

The Tasting Station Wines:

1996 Champagne Franck Bonville Brut Blanc de Blancs. This is a 100% chardonnay wine made from family-owned Grand Cru vineyards in Avize, Cramant, and Oger in the Côte de Blancs. It is a tightly focused, laser beam of a wine. But it is by no means one-dimensional. This wine is a bit tight right now and can go several more years. There’s a slight toastiness to the biscuity aromas. The fruit is very concentrated and clean in the mouth with chalky minerals playing a supporting role. The wine has a clean finish, but you know you definitely had something going on in your mouth before you swallowed. Great clarity and focus.

1996 Champagne Pierre Peters “Cuvée Spéciale” Brut Blanc de Blancs. This is also a 100% chardonnay wine made from family-owned plot in the Grand Cru vineyard of Chetillons in Le Mesnil sur Oger. The vines are about 70 years old. As with the Bonville, this wine will benefit from being left alone for a bit longer. This wine has more meatiness, yeastiness, and nuts than the NV Cuvée Reserve served as part of the larger program. The aroma is powerful as is the flavor profile. It’s almost not very “blanc de blancs like,” but is certainly a fun wine to drink. There were layer upon layer of citrus, apple, toast, and nuts, with gobs of hazelnut skins on the finish.

NV Champagne Michel Arnould “La Grande Cuvée” Brut. The fruit for this wine is all from the 1997 harvest, but the label makes no reference to the vintage. Arnould is not the only producer to do this, and some do it because they feel the house style they strive for is more important than vintage. The wine is made from two-thirds pinot noir and one-third chardonnay, all from family owned Grand Cru vineyards in Verzenay, with some of the chardonnay also coming from vineyards in Cramant. Many of the vineyards in Verzenay slope to the north. When the high acid harvested grapes meat the yeast, this makes for lots and lots of teeny bubbles. That, and the fact that Patrick Arnould puts the wine through complete malolactic fermentation give the wine a creamy texture. But you always know it’s an acidic bugger. The wine rests on the lees for three years prior to being released. The pinot noir fruit profile was evident here with some cherry tones. In this lineup, the wine seemed the least "overt" in terms of character, but I appreciated it for its balance and completeness. This would be a great toasting wine or terrific with triple cream cheeses.

1985 Champagne René Collard Brut Rosé. In the 1980s, Monsieur Collard only made rosé in the 1985 and 1988. It is made from 100% pinot meunier, of which 12% was added as still red wine, from the family-owned vineyards in Reuil. Meunier is usually relegated to blending grape status due to its early maturing quality and fruitiness that rounds out the blends For those who have trouble finding a rosé that does something for them, then this is the wine for you. You might not like what it does, but there’s no arguing it definitely does something. This wine shows off concentrated cherry and citrus oil flavors. It also has strong spice and earthy components similar to a great Burgundy. The finish seems to go on forever. If you were to ask any Champagne producer who (other than himself or herself) makes the best wines in the Vallée de Marne, you would likely hear the name René Collard named more than any other. It shows with this wine, which is unlike any other I've ever had.