All posts tagged: Champagne

Interview with Champagne Piper Heidsieck’s Émilien Boutillat

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I spoke with Émilien Boutillat, chef de cave at Champagne Piper Heidsieck, this week from New York for an update on the maison’s sustainability initiatives and the launch of Essentiel in the U.S. Find the video here. Boutillat took the reins from Régis Camus, who now oversees Rare, in October 2018. He’s a native of Champagne where his father is a grower and has worked in winegrowing regions – including for Peter Michael in Sonoma – around the world. The interview touches on several topics with an emphasis on the company’s sustainability efforts which include being the first Champagne house to achieve B Corp certification (2022) in addition to holding HVE3 (Haut Valeur Environmentale Level 3) and VDC (Viticulture Durable en Champagne) since 2015. As of 2020 they no longer farm using herbicides and are working with their growers to acheive the same level of stewardship. Meet Bacchus, the Vitibot, and learn more about Piper Heidsieck’s goals to reduce their and the Champagne AOP’s carbon footprint by reducing bottle weights and with longer term measures …

Carpe vinum vitrum

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No matter one’s knowledge of wine, there is simply no substitute for tasting. For those of us who keep an eye on the world’s ever-evolving wine regions, that means seizing an opportunity to taste as well as to meet the makers.

Age drives complexity in sparkling wine

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After tasting the Piper-Heidsieck Hors-Série 1971 ($499), a rare, late disgorged Champagne that spent 49 years resting peacefully on its lees, I was inspired to delve deeper into the role yeast autolysis plays in the flavor development of sparkling wine.

Brut Sous Bois Q & A with Mathieu Roland-Billecart

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No one needs a reason to drink Champagne but ringing out 2020 is certainly a good opportunity to reach for something beyond your sentimental favorite. In an effort to learn more about Billecart-Salmon’s Brut Sous Bois, I asked Mathieu Roland-Billecart for the inside scoop on this particular cuvée.

A tranquil moment with Didier Depond

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In a rare tête-a-tête, The SOMM Journal joined Didier Depond, President of the Champagne houses Salon and Delamotte, for an effervescent lunch featuring their current releases at San Francisco’s Piperade. We began with the superbly chalky 2008 Delamotte, which hails from just six Grand Cru villages. The 100 percent Blanc de Blanc brims with texture and ripe golden apple notes, and after observing the intensity of fruit on the mid-palate, I queried Depond on the risk climate change poses to the houses’ iconic style. He was quite circumspect in his response: “The culture of the vineyards in Champagne relies on balance, and we will balance them with this shift.” Despite more extreme weather events like the freak hailstorms earlier this year, warming temperatures in this marginal growing region may in fact work to the advantage of Champagne producers. Addressing the elephant in the room, we discussed the hotly debated expansion of the Champagne AOP area by an additional 5 percent. “Historically, these approved areas were under vine,” Depond said. “And, despite what you’ve read, there …

The pursuit of luxury

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Considering the benefits of spending more on wine. Luxury wine brands rank among a handful of product categories that are an outright contradiction of the law of demand. Known as Veblen goods after the American economist Thorstein Veblen, luxury products like wine, cars, jewelry, and artwork occupy a rarified status among consumers who are inclined to buy more as the price increases. While conspicuous consumption stands in direct opposition to the pursuit of quality for value that drives many a savvy wine buyer, neuroscientists have reported that when we buy luxury goods, we experience emotions of trust, security, contentment, and confidence over the duration of ownership. Apparently there’s more to the experience of drinking a bottle of ultra-premium Champagne, even if its lifespan lasts just a few hours during dinner. Authenticity and timelessness are considered the hallmarks of established luxury brands, but it’s possible for newly-minted brands to achieve a similar status when their underlying concept demonstrates those principles. Champagne is unquestionably a luxury product, and many brands and wines of the highest quality occupy …

A Sparkling Continuity: Jordan Cuvée Champagne by AR Lenoble

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In more ways than one, Champagne has begun infiltrating wineries in Sonoma and Napa counties. With several unprecedented examples that include Napa cult wine producer Sinegal launching its brand in conjunction with a prestige Champagne house, Sonoma’s Buena Vista Winery–branded Champagne and the unique partnership between Jordan Winery and the grower Champagne house of AR Lenoble, there’s a trend in the making.

Non-Vintage Champagnes: Rosé And Riper Styles Are Trending

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Both the French and the Brits are drinking less Champagne, but America’s obsession with bubbles is growing. Sales of Champagne in the U.S. are on the uptick even as consumers look to Prosecco and Cava to add some additional sparkle to their lives. When the Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne (CIVC) came to town last year with a large, well-orchestrated tasting at the Fairmont Hotel, Blind Tasting focused on the Réserve non- vintage wines; the bread-and-butter category that makes up 81% of all Champagne imports to the U.S. During a briefing at Prospect restaurant, Washington, D.C.- based Sam Heitner who directs the Champagne Bureau USA pointed to rosé as a significant trend, “It’s the fastest growing segment of Champagne in the U.S. making up 16.2% (that’s 2.9 million bottles) of all shipments.” The CIVC reports that in 2013 Americans drank 17.85 million bottles of Champagne, most of which, 87%, was produced by houses, with winegrowers and co-ops exporting just 13% of their production to the U.S. Read the entire article here: Non-Vintage Champagne

Will Magnetized Yeast Revolutionize Riddling?

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New technique promises to speed sparkling wine production. There’s no mistaking a gyro­palette at work, its top-heavy robotic arm twirling a wire pal­ette of bottles like a baton. But you’ll need a scanning elec­tron microscope to see the iron nanoparticles that have the poten­tial to make it obsolete. The early adoption of the robotic gyropalette by Cava producer Cor­doniu in the mid-1970s was a mile­stone that altered the course of the modern sparkling wine indus­try. Mechanized riddling reduced the amount of time required to move spent yeasts cells into the neck of a bottle from two months to a matter of days, all without any adverse effects on the sensory qualities of the wine. The wholesale adoption of mechanization by traditional-meth­od sparkling wine producers and many Champenoise dramatically reduced the production costs and time to market imposed by the labor-intensive technique of hand-riddling bottles. As such, bottle-aged sparkling wine became a viable and affordable alternative to still wine. Almost despite technology, this time-honored method remains very close to its original form. Beyond the gyropalette and …