Champagne!

All that sparkles is not Champagne. Just as all tissue is not Kleenex, all “champagne” is not Champagne. Legally, and perhaps morally, only sparkling wines from the Champagne region of France can be called Champagne. But “champagne” has become a generic word in the popular mind like Xerox or Coke. Call Spain’s sparklers “cava,” Austria and Germany’s “sekt,” Italy’s “spumante,” and France’s (outside Champagne) “cremant.” The word has geographical significance (Champagne is a place, after all),

“denoting a specific mélange of environmental factors (soil, climate-even its air smells different!) that makes the wine it yields unique. Champagne or other sparkling wines are a festive way to open holiday ceremonies. Spirits brighten, tongues loosen, stomachs start to growl. Champagne can be visually intoxicating…The bead rises in a swirling, swaying, sensually elegant ballet.” -importer Kermit Lynch, Inspiring Thirst

Several years ago, I began a heartfelt crusade. I want Americans to try real Champagne. That is, Champagne coming from wineries that grow grapes and vinify wine from their specific vineyards. These “growers” are farmers with dirt under their fingernails. They do not make luggage or perfume and do not sponsor tennis tournaments. Their Champagnes taste of the location where the grapes are grown. They taste different from the same grapes grown in other vineyards. This is the concept of “terroir.” All great wines, except for modern Champagne, derive from this concept. Now the Champenois are rediscovering terroir, and these growers are producing singularly delicious Champagnes. The large conglomerate Champagne brands like Veuve Clicquot, Moet, Taittinger, and others blend grapes purchased from all over the Champagne region into wines that emphasize their house style. In order to make a consistent, marketable “brand,” these houses lose the differences of terroir for the blandness of consistency. As the French say, “vive la difference!” Thankfully, most “grower” Champagnes are priced the same as “brand” Champagnes.

The leader in grower champagne, or farmer-fizz as he calls it, is importer and wine guru Terry Thiese. Every year he publishes a catalog of the Champagnes he imports--descriptions of the wines, articles on the wineries, general information on Champagne, and his editorials on the current state of the Champagne market. He is knowledgeable, opinionated, and a hoot to read.

We stock several of his Champagnes: Pierre Peters Blanc de Blancs Brut NV, A. Margaine Brut Cuvée Traditionelle NV, Chartogne-Taillet Brut Cuvee St.-Anne NV

Pierre Peters Blanc de Blancs Brut NV

A. Margaine Brut Cuvée Traditionelle NV

Chartogne-Taillet Brut Cuvee St.-Anne NV

View 2009 Champagne Catalog

From Terry's 2006 Champagne Catalog:

"No less than Andrew Jefford, in his epochal book The New France,* begins his chapter on Champagne with these words: 'Champagne is on the verge of profound change. There is a growing realization that its viticulture has become slovenly and the subtleties of its terroir have been neglected. The era of good growers and great vineyards is just beginning.'
Damn straight !"

(* A MUST READ book for every French wine lover.)

"There is an artisanal culture ALREADY IN PLACEin Champagne, and when you investigate their wines
you learn something I found revelatory and valuable; Champagne, like any other wine, is fascinating to the extent it is distinctive. There are varying soils, microclimates, and the particular insularity of rural Europe. The wines of the various
villages are enthrallingly distinct from one another, and for a sensibility like mine, it makes no more sense to
try and correct their “imperfections” by blending than it would to throw all of Selbach’s Zeltingers, Wehleners,
Graachers and Bernkastelers together in the quest for a “perfect” Mosel wine! Artisanal work has all the individualities
of the hands and hearts which inform it. It is beautifully nourished by human tics and foibles. Because
it is human, the perfection it occasionally attains has value."


"I was asked to produce thumbnails on a few of the important villages in Champagne for a wine-list.
Vamping, this is what I came up with.

CRAMANT: the “Riesling” of Chardonnay-Champagnes, maximum-mineral and sweet-herbal
green tea flavors along with heirloom-apples.

AVIZE: smells just like a newly sharpened pencil, and also just as pointed. Refined and incisive.

OGER: Avize with more flesh on its noble bones.

MESNIL: the voodoo-doll of the Côte des Blancs, blossoming trees on a humid Spring evening, over a pulverized
chalk structure so tactile you’ll think they dissolved the stuff in the wine.

CUMIÈRES: For lovers of pork-belly everywhere—and who doesn’t love pork-belly?

MAREUIL-SUR-AŸ: Is the Morey-St-Denis of Pinot Noir based Champagnes; scrupulous, classic, firm.

VERZENAY: for the real seeker of earth-sex, these are rural, animal Champagnes with funky iris smells and
the weirdest (and coolest) apple-hoppy-meady terroir thang and yet the wines have SCHWING and are actually
even refined. Don’t worry be hoppy."


"CHAMPAGNE AT THE TABLE
I warn you now; if we do a wine dinner I won’t allow Champagne to be used as an aperitif and ignored thereafter.
Not when it’s one of the easiest slam-dunk food wines of all. Many of you know this already, so I’ll spare
you the exegeses. I have always disliked bombast and ostentation in any aesthetic object, and wines that scream
to be noticed are exactly those I find easiest to ignore. But wines which slide smoothly onto the palate and dance in
sync with food are the wines which, paradoxically, have the most to say to us. And Champagne, among such wines,
is perhaps the most refined and sensuous.

Plus, hey; Chardonnay’s got to be good for something, right? In fact, if you’ll permit a digression, I think I’ve discovered
the one thing for which Chardonnay is indispensable. You can make good Champagne, even quite interesting
Champagne with red grapes only—but you rarely make great Champagne without Chardonnay.
Concomitantly, it is quite possible to make great Champagne using only Chardonnay. I have tasted a lot of
vin claire now, and I can tell you they give more Chardonnay JOY than many, many of their more ostentatious
cousins from elsewhere. Tasting in Oger I found the nearest resemblance was to Riesling: the still Chardonnay
was flowery, gracious and limpid, even before the influences of yeasts and autolysis. Chardonnay adds not only
flavor but also backbone and raciness, and it has a synergy with Pinot Noir which creates new flavors when the
two are blended. Invariably, whenever a grower has two quality grades (e.g. an N.V. Brut and another superior N.V.
Brut) the better wine has more Chardonnay in it, apart from longer time on the lees and lower dosage."

Grechetto dei Colli Martani 2007, Antonelli, $14.99
(Grechetto 100%; Montefalco,Umbria, Italy)
.....Grechetto is Umbria's main white grape variety. In southern Orvieto it is used as one grape in the blend, but in the central Todi area, known as the Colli Martani, it is a varietal wine or 100%. The winery is located there in the town of Montefalco. Owner Filippo Antonelli has run the estate since 1986. He divides his time between Montefalco and Rome where he manages another estate, Castello di Torre in Pietra. We visited the winery last September with our guide Christiano, the proprietor of the Enoteca Oberdan, our favorite restaurant and wine bar in our home base of Todi. Now our favorite "house" white wine, this Grechetto is full and smooth with stone fruits and citrus and an intriguiging herbal note. We have paired it with tomato-basil soup, salads, "white" pizza (rosemary and parmesean) It reminds me of Gruner Veltliner fom Austria, which is another of my favorite dry white wines.

Montefalco Rosso 2004, Antonelli, $20.99
(Sangiovese 65% , Sagrantino 15%, Cabernet Sauvignon 10%, Merlot 10%; Montefalco,Umbria, Italy)
.....This red is blended from the classic Umbrian red grapes including Umbria's own, unique Sagrantino grape. The bouquet shows "frutti di bosco" or fruits of the forest, cherries, and plums and notes of toasty oak. In the mouth it is generous and beautifully balanced.

Orvieto Classico Superiore "Terre Vineate" 2008, Palazzone $14.99
(Procanico 50%, Grechetto 25%, and the rest Verdelho, Malvasia Toscano, and Drupeggio; Orvieto, Umbria, Italy)

.....On our penultimate day in Umbria we drove through the cold misty rain from Todi past the cliff-top city of Orvieto to the hamlet of Rocca Ripesena and the Palazzone winery. There we met the charming and erudite owner/winemaker Giovanni Dubini. After touring the winery we moved next door to the recently restored Locanda Palazzone. This 14th century "hospalitis" or Pilgrim Inn lies on the route of the ancient Via Francigena that ran from Canterbury, England to Rome.

.....Giovanni opened all nine of his wines including an old vintage of one wine, the 1997 "Terre Vineate" Orvieto that was alive and intriguing with a deep gold color and showing very different fruits than the current vintage. He described the 2007's "elegant, vivid bouquet with a definite scent of hazelnut. The impact on the palate is intense yet refreshingly dry and the finish is a perfect balance between the perfume of the fruits and a touch of bitterness. Terre Vineate is a wine for pasta dishes, for meat accompanied by rich sauce and for fish cooked in piquant fashion." I found peach, pear, mineral, and hazelnut. Round on the palate with a lovely fruit depth, it is my favorite Orvieto. "Terre Vineate" is the medieval map designation for a vineyard. It is from the heart of Orvieto in the "Classico" zone and is a reserve bottling, thus "Superiore."

.....Giovanni shared many of his ideas with us, "In wine, everything is written in the vineyard." And also, "A bottle of wine should be a bottle of life, not a bottle of oak and dead trees." After an enlightening visit, he called his favorite trattoria in Orvieto, La Palomba, to arrange a hearty lunch of umbricelli tartufati (Umbrian pasta with truffles). He left us with this thought: "We accept the tradition of Orvieto Classico with its distinctive mix of grape varieties; we are happy to let the more immediate, fragrant Grechetto and the austere, earthy Procanico assert their character. We love the idea that the profile of a white wine from central Italy might stand out -- graceful yet incisive... We are proud to be able to make a white wine that can be relied upon but where you can taste the difference from vintage to vintage."