The basics of bubbles

Sparkling wine has long been a passion of mine; there's just something about the "pop" of a cork leaving a bottle, the bubbles in the glass, that simply makes me happy.

That being said, I know that most people get confused easily with sparkling wine, and can understand that -- the terminology is confusing (and somewhat counterintuitive), for one thing, and for another, most people might drink 2-3 bottles a year; a shame, because bubbles are for all the time.

So, here's a quick guide to the sparkling wine making process, focusing on the methode traditional (sometimes called the Methode Champanois, or champagne method, or fermentation in bottle). There are three other methods of making sparkling wine, the Methode Ancestrelle (a rarely-used method in Champagne where the wine is made as it was in the early part of that appellation's history), the Charmat method (used for Prosecco and inexpensive bubblies), and carbonation (sort of like making soda). Still, most sparkling wine is made using the method outlined below, from inexpensive Cava in Spain, to Cap Classique in South Africa, to the rarest luxe cuvees from Champagne.

Step 1: grapes are picked, crushed, and vinified into wine. Now, this is sometimes called the "mother wine," and it can be pretty... well, sharp is a polite way to put it (it's been described as drinking battery acid). This wine can be stored for years to blend several vintages together to make a nonvintage wine (which is what most sparkling wine is), or one year can be vinified alone to make a millesme, or vintage wine. Nonvintage wine is the bread-and-butter of the sparkling winemaker, while vintage wines are generally what make their names famous (sparkling wine is not unlike Port in that fashion).

Either way, in Step 2: the mother wines are put in a bottle, yeast and sugar are added, and the whole thing is capped with a crown cap (a beer-bottle cap). The yeast eat the sugar, excrete a bit more alcohol and more CO₂, putting the bubbles in the wine. This is the stage where you see old French men in bicycles riding around the cellars, rotating the bottles once per day (called riddling the bottles), forcing the lees, or yeast cells, into the neck of the bottle as the bottles are slowly angled upright (neck-down). Of course, that's mainly for show, or for the prestige cuvees -- most wine now is rotated on a big machine called a gyropallete, that does the work automatically, although some producers do still hand-riddle their bottles (Schramsberg, in Napa, comes to mind). This stage can take literally years (in Champagne, the minimum aging time is 18 months if I recall, and some prestige cuvees can remain at this stage for up to 10 years).

In Step 3: the bottle neck is frozen, the crown cap removed, and the plug of frozen yeast and wine removed (well... it removes itself, due to the gas pressure inside the bottle), and a bit more sugar and wine is added to fill the bottle. That's the dosage. Then the bottle is corked with a Champagne cork, the cage and foil are added, and voila, you have bubbly. Note that the technical name for removing the yeast plug is disgorgement.

Now, for terminology, some wines will be labeled Blanc de Blancs or Blanc de Noirs -- that just means that at step 1, all the grapes were white (chardonnay, pinot blanc, etc), or red (pinot noir, pinot meunier, etc), respectively. White wine from white grapes, or white wine from black grapes.

Some wines will be labeled Brut, or Extra Dry, or Demi-Sec (there are other classifications to be found, but they're rare). That just refers to the amount of sugar in the dosage. Brut is the lowest sugar level, extra dry is slightly sweet, and demi-sec is sweetest still. Cava is also sometimes labeled Semi-Seco, which is roughly the same as Demi-Sec or Extra Dry. Why is extra dry not the driest level, you ask? Because, in the 1800's, when that classification system was created, sparkling wine was consumed much sweeter than it is now (the average dosage for a Champagne for the American market was roughly twice what the sweetest one is now, in terms of grams of sugar per liter), so extra dry really was quite dry.

Sparkling wine trivia:

• There are six twists to the cage on a sparkling wine cap (go ahead, next time you open Champagne, count!).
• A bottle of sparkling wine contains roughly three times more pressure than the tire of a car.
• Although there are nine grapes allowed in Champagne, generally only 3 are used in any significant quantity; pinot noir, pinot meunier, and chardonnay. The other 6 are very rare -- arbanne, petit meslier, and pinot blanc (which together account for 0.02% of the acreage of Champagne), pinot gris (also called fromentau), pinot de julliet, and pinot rose.
• Most rose sparkling wines are made by adding a dash of still red wine between steps 1 and 2. However, some (called saignee roses) are made by leaving the red wine grapes (the pinots) in contact with the wine for a couple of hours.
• To open a bottle of sparkling wine properly, tilt the bottle at a 45 degree angle, pointed away from anything that the cork might hurt (a wall is OK, while a TV, pet, or person... not so much.). Remove the foil, release the cage, put your hand OVER the top of the cork (to keep it from shooting off accidentally), grip tight, and twist the bottle. Ideally, the noise that comes out will not be a resounding "pop," but a more delicate "pffft."
• Sparkling wines are remarkably food-friendly. Try a light blanc de blancs with scallops in butter, or a rich blanc de noirs with Beef Wellington. Sweeter wines go well with salty foods (I once had a semi-seco cava with teriyaki salmon and it completely blew my mind).
• Champagne's association with celebration comes from the fact that the King of France -- starting with Hugh Capet -- was traditionally crowned in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, in Reims. After the coronation, the local wine was featured in celebration.
• Champagne producers are noted for early adoption of the idea of a celebrity spokesperson; they would pay noted entertainers (opera singers, etc) to publicly and conspicuously drink their wines as far back as the 1800's.
• The bubbles in a Champagne glass form on imperfections in the glass itself. Some glassmakers will purposefully etch a small ring into the base, to provide with locations for that to happen.

Splurge wines, holiday edition.

Looking at my Top 10 list yesterday, and I got to thinking... "what wines would I splurge on?"

Note that not all of these are wines I've had -- in fact, most, I haven't tried. But, if you had to get me a splurge-worthy wine, these would be the ones I'd love to see under the tree on Christmas... perhaps the wine geek on your Christmas list might enjoy one as well!

• 10: Andrew Will Ciel du Cheval 2006 ($55-ish). I've never had it, but a friend of mine at work got to taste it this past year, and said it was sublime, a wonderful Left Bank style blend from Washington. I like Washington wines, and I like the Left Bank, so I think this'd be excellent.
• 9: Pavillion Rouge de Ch. Margaux 2005 ($100-ish). I've always had good luck with second wines, and 2005 was -- as everyone has said -- an amazing year for Bordeaux. Pavillion Rouge is, traditionally, every bit as good as almost any other wine from the region.
• 8: Dr. Loosen Erdener Treppfchen Riesling Auslese 2007 ($55). Sublime Riesling, and the perfect antidote for the person who thinks that "sweet" = "bad" for wine. A perfect balance of sugar and acidity, that finishes for seemingly days. Truly an experience, and one I'll gladly repeat.
• 7: Dom de Perdrix Echezeaux 2005 ($150). A little young for drinking now, but... well, it's Grand Cru Burgundy. What more needs to be said?
• 6: Bodega Catena Zapata Catena Alta 2006 ($50). A big Argentine red, but well-balanced, easy to access, and most importantly incredibly tasty! Argentine wines offer some of the best value on the market right now, and a wine of similar quality from California would easily cost thrice as much.
• 5: Nickel & Nickel Chardonnay Searby Vineyard 2007 ($55). I loved Far Niente's charddonay... Nickel & Nickel is their single-vineyard line, and I'd love to see how it compares.
• 4: Bodegas LAN Culmen 2004 ($65). Powerful, deep, complex wine from a producer that's best-known for more value driven, mass market crianzas. The big, cult-wine bottle doesn't hurt the presentation either!
• 3: Titus Vineyards Reserve Cabernet 2006 ($60-ish). I've loved Titus' cabs for the last several vintages, and their '06 has amazing reviews (a better review than Screaming Eagle in Wine Spectator, if you can believe it!)... which I can say it's earned completely. A tasting pour is all I got to have, and I really, really want a bottle to cellar.
• 2: BV Georges de Latour 2006 ($105 list, but often on sale for less). Yeah, I know, you're wondering... "BV? Really?" And while their lower-end wines are pretty pedantic, their Georges de Latour is... well, amazing. I've had several vintages (2005, 2004, and 1990), and enjoyed them both old and young. '06 is the latest release, and it's one of those wines that wound up being a diamond in the rough -- '06 wasn't a great year in Napa, but BV did admirably.
• 1: Salon Champagne Brut Blanc de Blancs 1998 ($250-ish). Champagne Salon is arguably the best producer from Le Mesnil sur Orger, and 1998 (their latest release) is one of the better vintages available. It's pricy, but what better way to ring in the New Year than with cult Champagne! Only 6,000 cases per vintage are produced by Salon (they source only from the Le Mesnil vineyard, where Le Mesnil sur Orger gets it's name from), and they don't produce a wine every year, so it's really the definition of "cult wine."

Any one of these under the tree would be absolutely excellent! What would you like to find with a bow on it for Christmas?

Top 10 of 2009

Looking through my notes for the year, the following are my favorite wines of 2009 (note: not highest scoring wines, some of these are on the list for their quality to price ratio).

• 10: Mendoza Station Torrontes 2008. For under $6, it's a crisp, clean white from a region best-known for it's heavy reds, and it's insanely tasty. One of the very few wines that I've bought more than one bottle of this year.
• 9: San Andrea in Colle Il Rosso 2007. One of the best inexpensive Tuscan IGT's that I've had. Period. Again, one that I bought more than one bottle of; the perfect pairing for this one is a couch and a TV! Roughly $9.
• 8: Nino Franco Prosecco Rustico. My favorite Prosecco of the year, wonderful white peach and spice notes, surprising intensity and complexity out of a wine that most people think of as Champagne's poor cousin, showing how Prosecco can really stand on it's own. About $18.
• 7: Pertois-Moriset Grand Cru Champagne. Breathtaking blanc de blancs, from Le Mensil Sur Orger (home of Champagne Salon, and where Krug sourcers their Chardonnay). A surprise; generally I dislike blanc de blancs, as they're so think and over-acidic, but this one has a bit more weight on the palate, and the acidity is better balanced. Hard to find (only 250 cases were imported), but a great argument for RM Champagnes. A steal at $35. As a note, they also make a vintage -- the current release is the 2000, pictured, but it's even harder to find, as only 75 cases came into the US.
• 6: Titus Chardonnay 2007. Opulent, plush Chardonnay from Carneros. This is a Rombauer-esque wine for half the price; wonderful ripe golden delicious apples, vanilla, and buttercream. They only make about 500 cases of this a year, but if you can find one, a bottle should set you back about $20, even though it's worth more.
• 5: Coelho Pinot Noir Paciência 2006. When I tasted this, my immediate reaction was "so, this is why people keep going on about Oregon pinot..." It was spicy, full, and absolutely, insanely tasty. Fairly small-production (Coelho makes about 2500 cases a year), and $35.
• 4: Château Doisy-Védrines 2005. An absolutely amazing Sauternes, powerful, with spot-on characteristics of the type -- including the "gym sock" note in the nose. At just under $40, it's a pricey dessert wine, but with some blue cheese or pate, it's an amazing experience and I highly recommend it.
• 3: Pierre Amadieu Grande Romaine Gigondas 2006. It's like mature Châteauneuf-du-Pape, at half the price. Gigondas is my favorite "hidden gem" appellation of the Rhone, offering wonderful wine with the power and depth of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, but since it's not as well-known, the wines from there cost less than half. This one was $22.
• 2: Thorne-Clarke William Randall Shiraz 2005. A monster of an Aussie shiraz, but amazingly well-balanced. Is it over-the-top, huge wine? Yep. Do I want another bottle? Yep. Expensive, at about $40, but worth it.
• 1: Château Haut-Bages Libéral 2006. One of Wine Spectator's top 100, and I can agree with that assessment. A rich, deep, chewy wine, one with a breadth and complexity that I found amazing. Young now -- I'd say drink 2012-2020. The most expensive wine on the list, at $45, and worth every penny.

What would your top 10 of 2009 be?

Image from Austin Keys, used under Creative Commons Sharealike 2.0.

Wine for the holidays

Even though it's late October, thoughts around casa Corkdork are turning to the holidays; partly because November also happens to be my father's birthday, partly because it's the time when we start considering "hey, what should we have with Thanksgiving dinner?"  There'll have to be at least 7 bottles purchased for gifting/celebrating this year -- two for Thanksgiving dinner, two for Christmas Eve, one for Dad's birthday, and two more for Christmas presents.  Oh, and something to ring in the new year with.

There's food to pair with, people's flavor preferences (and dislikes!) to work around, and gift-presentation thoughts to consider!  What is a wine afficianado to do?!

The current thinking is running something like this:

• For Thanksgiving, we traditionally have two bottles; a sparkling wine and a red with dinner.  For the bubbly, I have to say I love Cava, both for it's affordability (hey, they're all under $25 at my local wine store, and most are under $10, including my two favorites, Conde de Caralt and Rondel), and it's zesty flavor -- the perfect thing to start a meal with.
• For dinner, we traditionally have a Pinot Noir, and this year will probably be no different -- Pinot is versatile enough to work with the variety of foods on the table, and it's cranberry notes are a natural choice.  In the past, we've had Oregon and Russian River Pinot, but this year I think we may go for Burgundy, with the Chateau Chamirey Mercury Rouge 2005 (under $40) -- I got to try it twice this past weekend, once newly-opened and once with some air, and it's evolution was wonderful.  Newly-opened, it's fresh and fruity, but with some air, complexity is added, with earthiness and minerality underpinning the ripe fruit.
• My father loves reds and steak, so the natural thought there is a wine to go with steak.  He especially loves California Cabernet and Chateau Neuf du Pape, and those fit quite well in that milleu.  Since his birthday is in November, he'll get two bottles this season; probably one of each.  The current thinking is something from Martin Ray for the California Cab -- Dad's a big fan of their Stag's Leap and Diamond Mountain District cabs -- and a 2006 Chateau Neuf du Pape ('05 was a better year in the Southern Rhone, perfect for laying down for a couple years, but '06 is ready to drink young, and Dad doesn't hold onto wine long).  Another possibility would be a bottle from Von Strasser -- I know Dad's not had anything from them before, but they're excellent.  In all three cases, the presentation is part of the key -- the bottle looks good, as well as having good juice inside it.
• Not unlike with Thanksgiving, we start Christmas eve with bubbles, but generally Champagne.  Here, I'll look for a grower-maker wine -- it'll be a treat, pretty much regardless of what I pick.  Currently, I'm leaning towards a vintage 2000  Pertois-Moriset -- not as great of a year as 1996, but still quite good, and very tasty.
• Christmas Eve dinner traditionally consists of a roast of beef with lots of garlic and herbs.  I've got my eye on a very small-production Barolo (200 cases made, from a single vineyard), which will get a full decanting treatment, as we'll be drinking it young -- Barolo is notoriously long-lived.
  
• My fiancee loves Italian wines, and while a Barolo would make a great gift, she doesn't hold onto wine for more than a year, so a mature Brunello makes sense; there's lots of 2000's still out there, and even some '99's.  In fairness, since I'll likely be consuming the wine with her, it makes sense to pick out something I like too, and I love Brunello.
• Finally, to ring in the new year, something sweet (hopefully a harbinger of the year to come).  Demi-sec Champagne comes to mind -- it's much better for drinking on it's own than a brut -- and one of my favorite grower-makers has just the answer...  Franck Bonville's nonvintage Demi-sec (which they don't mention on their website -- hopefully it's not out of production!).

So, what can we learn from this list?  Well, for one, that I tend to spend about $40 on a bottle of wine for a gift (more or less, but everything averages out around $40 here).  Additionally, the perfect gift for one person may not be perfect for another -- while my fiancee might enjoy the Von Strasser or Martin Ray, she'll love a Brunello, and my father might like a Brunello, but he loves California Cab.  Additionally, it's not necessary to go to one of the major, spendy bottles for a gift (that's, of course, if you can find them -- there's not a lot of cult Brunello for sale in my area); a good gift of good wine, even if it's not from a "name brand" winery, will be appreciated -- and, may, in fact, be better (as the "name brand" wine charges a surcharge for the name!  To wit, I think the Von Strasser Sori Bricco cabernet is the equal of Diamond Creek's Red Rock Terrace, and it's half the price).  Finally, traditions are hard to break; we've had Champagne for probably 20 years for Christmas, and that's probably not going to change any time soon.  So go with it!

Image from slideshows.health.com.

Tasting the grand cuvee.

Through work yesterday, I had the opportunity to go to a very nice tasting (our last for the year, alas) -- wines for selling through the holidays.  We concentrated on sparkling wines, ranging from $8 cava through a $170 Krug Grand Cuvee.

Interestingly enough, the Krug was a late replacement for another bottle -- the 1998 Nicholas Feuilette Palmes D'Or, which we've had some quality control issues with (in fact, I got to taste the tester bottle of Palmes, and it's nothing like how the '97 I had last year was -- much more bitter.).

So, how was the Krug?

In a word, it was a razor-wire balance between weight and acidity, and Champagne Krug does this very well.   There's a unusual green-yellow cast to the wine in the glass, and it shows a lot of tart fruits (green apple, lime), and bracing, steely minerality.  It's a unique wine -- I've not had any Champagne that quite matches the style -- and I can understand how people would want to seek it out.  (93 points, if you're looking for a number and not a tasting note)

Is it worth $170 a bottle?

Well... if you've got $170 to blow on a bottle of wine, sure, why not!  Still, for the money, one could almost have a 6-pack of the best value Champagne from the tasting (the $30 GH Martel Brut Presteige -- much more yeasty/toasty than Krug, with more red fruit, but a great value and 91 points), or 4 of the second-best Champagne (the $45 DeMargerie Cuvee Special Grand Cru -- big, luxuriant wine with tons of red berries, tons of weight, and length.  92 points).

And that, I think, is the point of the luxe cuvees.  Are they better wines?  Yes.  Are they 4 times as good?  Not so much -- it's a very marginal difference.  So, really, when it comes time to buy a bottle of Champagne this year for a present... I don't think I'd go for a tete de cuvee.  Much more likely would be a bottle of a very good non-luxe cuvee, and some glassware.  Except for that one wine-geek friend who can really grok the difference (or, for that matter, for myself).

On wine and burgers

Yesterday, I had a very nice conversation with someone about Champagne -- and, oddly enough, I was not in a wine store when doing so.  While waiting in line at the bank, a woman in chef's pants (it turns out she is in fact a cook at a local restaurant) struck up a conversation asking "so what do you do?"  When I replied that I work in wine, she asked about my favorite Champagne.

When I told her, "it depends on what I'm drinking it with," there was shock and surprise; I believe she expected an answer like "Piper-Heidsick," or "Laurent Perrier."  A name that she recognized from the wine list.  She was further shocked when I broadly labeled the top volume producers as making "mostly mediocre wine."

So, I came up with a quick-and-dirty analogy that might be useful -- both with Champagne and still wines.  Comparing wine producers to hamburger restaurants.

Big names everyone's heard of are kind of like McDonalds or Burger King.  Big national fast-food chains.  Everyone knows McDonalds, and though the food there won't make you ill, it's not fine cuisine by any stretch. It's serviceable food, meant for mass consumption by people with a broad spectrum of palates.  Same with wine made for mass consumption; it's made to try and please as many people as possible.  Think Veuve Cliquot yellow label, or Chateau Ste. Michelle.  Yes, these names may make good upper-end wines (Grande Dame, or Indian Wells), sort of how McDonalds does sometimes do a good "special" burger (Black Angus and mushroom, for example), but for the most part, it's cheap and cheerful.

Smaller names that you may or may not have heard of are kind of like Five Guys, or In-n-Out, or Whataburger.  Regional chains, these places are about the same price as the big guys, perhaps a bit more, but they make good products.  The wine equivalent would be stuff you sometimes see on wine lists, but that you rarely find in a grocery store.  For Champagne, think Feuilette or Montaudon, for American wines think Martin Ray or Gordon Brothers.  They try, and generally succeed, at making top-flight products that are consistently good, and memorable.

Then, there's the real artisan producers.  RM Champagnes, estate-grown wines (oddly enough, many of these are in the category of "wineries lots of people have heard of," but mainly due to their cost, not as many people have had their wines).  This is like that friend who insists on having fresh-ground beef prepared at the butcher in front of him, hand-selects the freshest lettuce, makes homemade mayonnaise from scratch, and who grills that amazing burger that makes your mouth water to think of.  Yeah, the quality will vary slightly (good years versus bad ones for wine, days when all the butcher has is chuck roast versus sirloins for the burgers), but at the best of times, they're amazing, magical experiences.

And that, my friends, is why wine geeks are always searching for that new winery that "nobody's ever heard of, but you should try their estate cab!"  We're searching for the perfect burger in a world full of McDonalds.

Sticks and stones...

While reading through other blogs, I happened upon a link to this article in Decanter (a British wine publication, that I highly recommend).  The quick-and-dirty version of it is that the EU has banned the use of certain terms on the label of US wines.  The list?  Chateau, classic, clos, cream, crusted/crusting, fine, late bottled vintage, noble, ruby, superior, sur lie, tawny, vintage and vintage character.

Insanity!  This is to say that, say, Chateau Montelena -- which has a definitively European-castle styled building onsite (see the above left photo from their website) cannot bring their wine into Europe without changing the name (one that's been in use for over 30 years).  Nor could Clos du Bois, Clos du Val, Chateau Ste. Michelle, or Chateau St. Jean.  You can't call your Port-like wine (Port is a protected term already, although a number of wines have been grandfathered in) a Tawny or Ruby, even if it is in that style!  If you age your wines on the lees -- the yeast particulates left over after fermentation -- you can't say it's been aged "sur lie."  You dare not make both a nonvintage and vintage cuvee if you're an American sparkling wine producer!

What a crock!  It means that we, as Americans, would have to develop an entirely new vocabulary to explain wine, one for which perfectly acceptable terms have been being used for years!  Great, we'll have to make a subject that is already unreasonably complex and imposing even harder to understand and potentially less accessable to the average person.  Great marketing strategy, there, guys.

Now, I'm the first person to say we should protect European place names for wine – in my personal opinion, there's no excuse for an American winery producing a Chianti, or a Burgundy.  And don't even get me started on Champagne being used on American wines – even with the modifier “California” or “New York” in front of it.  I shudder to think of the beating that that appellation has taken due to greedy American vintners subverting it's fine name and putting out mass-market crap (well... different mass-market crap than the vintners who belong in the appellation -- and, in fairness, the American mass-market crap is often not even made using the same method; Cooks "California Champagne" is Charmat-method, for example).  But this move smacks of pure European protectionism; three of the better-known American producers of mass-market wines are affected by it (Clos du Bois, Chateau Ste. Michelle and Chateau St. Jean).

What's the solution?  Should the US slap the EU with a similar ruling, saying "you can't send wine into our market without an explicit explanation of what the grapes are?" (labels from the Rhone would get a lot more complex then, and I fear the Bordelais would simply revolt).  Perhaps a tariff on EU wines?  Great ideas, but then US consumers suffer for the sins of the EU, in the sense of losing the ability to choose European wines or in overpaying for them.  In that case, we'd be no better than the EU -- after all, the European consumer's freedom of choice has been limited by this as well (in fact, one of the better American wines made by a European vintner is Dr. Loosen's Eroica, made under the Chateau Ste. Michelle label!  So, if you're in the Mosel and you want Loosen Riesling, your choices are limited to only the local wines, and not any of his Washington State endeavors!).  And, of course, European vintners, who already make more wine than they sell, lose out on a fairly major market for export.

There's a fine line between protecting the uniqueness that terroir imparts in a wine, and heralding the history of technique used in making it, and trying to unfairly stifle the competition.  This EU ruling seems to be firmly in the latter category.  It's as crazy as trying to forbid the word "Glen" in the name of a non-Scotch whisky.  Oh, wait... that's been tried.  And failed.

More Champagne!

My prior post got me to thinking about the labels for Champagne.  There's some useful information to be found on them, so here's the quick-and-dirty on it, using this Deutz Rose 1999 label as an example.

First of all, since it says "Millésmé 1999," we know that this is a vintage wine -- most Champagne will not show a date, and is therefore nonvintage (it's a blend of juice from different years, so they can't label it with a vintage).  "Rosé" means the juice should be pink, either because of sangineé (leaving the juice from the pinot noir and pinot meunier in contact a short while with the skins to get the color from it), or because some still red wine was added (Champagne is the only region in France, as far as I know, where that's allowed).  Other types of Champagne would be Blanc de Blancs -- 100% Chardonnay -- and Blanc de Noirs -- 100% Pinot Noir and/or Pinot Meunier.

This wine does not list a cru status, so we can infer that either the wine was made with a blend of crus (some grand, some premier, and some plain ol' cru), or that the village where the grapes were harvested were neither grand nor premier cru.  Either way, there's probably not going to have a lot of terroir in the wine.

On the bottom, next to the bottle size, there's a code: NM-178-005.  The "NM" tells you that the wine is a négociant wine -- more than 5% of the grapes, juice, or finished wine were purchased from someone else.  Yes, it's practice in Champagne to purchase finished bubbles and blend it into your own cuveé!

Now, there are several other codes that could be used here:

• RM: Récoltant-Manipulant.  Grower-maker.  Less than 5% of the grapes, juice, or wine was purchased.  The remainder was grown by the producer.
• CM: Coopérative de Manipulation.  A co-op; the wine was made by a group of growers getting together and sharing their grapes.
• RC: Récoltant-Coopérateur.  Grower-cooperator.  This is a grower who turns over their fruit to a co-op, but takes back the wine before it's done.
• SR: Société de Récoltants.  Group of growers; this is a family business, where one part of the family grows grapes, and another makes wine.
• ND: Négociant Distributeur.  This is a merchant selling finished wine under their own name.
• MA: Marque Auxiliaire or Marque d'Acheteur.  This is wine sold under a name unrelated to the grower or producer.

In general, the quality level of the RM's, SR's, and RC's is fairly high (likely, you'll only see RM's -- there are few SR's and RC's out there).  The CM's are pretty good, generally, depending on where they get their grapes from -- so check the cru status and/or village name on the bottle.  NM's can be good, but the big ones tend to be pretty cookie-cutter, so tread lightly into them; look for a cru status (yes, there are Grand Cru NM's), and ask questions at your wine store.

Avoid the ND and MA wines, generally.  They're the stuff that couldn't be sold to the NM's.  There are exceptions, but they're very few and far between.

Now, if the name of the wine includes the word "Château," it means that the wine was bottled and cellared entirely on the estate.  There are, I'm given to understand, only a handful Château Champagnes, and I can heartily recommend one (Château de Bligny -- in the sense of full disclosure, I got to taste it for free with the owner's son at a tasting event).

Edit: Thanks to Boris for pointing out I'd incorrectly referenced the villages below Premier Cru as Cru Bourgois -- it's just plain "Cru," at that point in Champagne.

A Champagne Manifesto

In the world of wine, few wines are as romanticized as Champagne; there's an aura of luxury, romance, and celebration surrounding the word.  Champagne is what we use to greet the new year, to celebrate weddings and birthdays, what we splurge on.  It's... well, Champagne!

Oddly enough, though, it's often about as artisan of a product as Pepsi.  Often, in fact, it's about as industrial a wine as the Australian "critter label" contingent.  Champagne is, for the most part, dominated by the big luxury-good conglomerates (LVMH -- Louis Vuitton Moët Hennesey -- and Rémy-Cointreau are the best known of these).  What could be considered "big house" Champagne accounts for around 90% of the market, as of 2008.

Why are these wines bad?  Well, not so much bad, as suboptimal?  An analogy¹ may be in order; imagine a vintner -- your favorite, be it Heidi Peterson-Barrett, or Michel Gassier, whoever -- releasing a new wine called simply "California," or "Loire," or "Piedmont," named after the grand region where the wine is from.  There's no vintage date.  The blend of grapes is left unknown, but they do tell you "some of the grapes are from here, some from there, but we can't tell you where all of them are from -- trade secret, you understand.  Yeah, there's no appellation on it, but really, isn't all that appellation stuff just too complex anyhow?  At any rate, the wine is luxurious, worthy of top prices -- it'll start at $40 a bottle.  We made a million cases of it last year.  So buy it."

You'd look at them like they were insane, right?  $40 a bottle for a wine with a million-case production run (by way of comparison, that's on the order of quantity of Yellowtail Cabernet)?  No vintage date, no appellation, no terroir?  No thanks.

Yet, this is exactly what the big houses do.  Consider Veuve Cliquot (owned by LVMH) -- their production is around 1.5 million cases annually, when you take into account all of their wines (base nonvintage, rose, demi sec, vintage, and Grande Dame).  The vast majority of the wine is made with purchased grapes (Champagne has about 19,000 vineyard owners, and the big houses own very little land).  Most of their wine carries no vintage date.  It's been stretched and manipulated through dosage to meet the requests of a focus group.  It's a product, in the truest sense of the word -- the planned, plotted outcome of a very rigorously designed process.

Sounds a lot like the story of Woodbridge, doesn't it?  Except, at least, Woodbridge is vintage-dated; they allow for some small variance from year to year.  It might be interesting... perhaps.  Or at least different.

It gets worse, though -- even the grapes the big houses buy tend not to be very good.  They pay by weight, not quality, for their grapes.  Good grapes for sparkling wine tend to be just a hair under-ripe, and low on water -- hence, light.  If you are a farmer with two plots of land, one with heavy, wet grapes that are not ideal for sparkling wine, and one with perfectly under-ripe grapes, and someone offers you money for weight, what would you give them?  I'd save the good stuff for someone who paid for quality!

So why is this stuff $40+ a bottle?  Is it worth it?

My answer would be a resounding "no."

So what's the alternative?

Récoltant-Manipulant ("Grower-Maker") Champagne.  The other 10% of the market.  Where the good grapes tend to stay.  You can tell a Récoltant wine by the initials "RM" on the Champagne code (generally on the bottom of the front label).  These are wines made by people, not corporations.  Wines with a sense of place, not ones that are poked and prodded into bland nothingness.

And, even better, these are not wines that are more expensive -- in fact, due to a lack of marketing costs (sponsoring polo tournaments and regattas is expensive, it turns out!) RM Champagne often costs substantially less than the big-house products!

Often, an RM wine will even carry the name of the village where the grapes were grown -- there's several hundred in Champagne, and some even have a cru (Grand or Premier) status associated with them.  I find, personally, that the pinot-heavy wines of Bouzy are excellent -- very lively, with gorgeous cherry notes.  For blancs de blancs, wines made only of Chardonnay, Le Mesnil-sur-Oger is excellent, with focused citrus and biscuit notes.

Note that I'm not recommending a specific label here -- the RM's available in my market may not be the RM's available in someone else's.  We're talking about wines with a total production in the thousands of bottles, so even with as small a slice of the market as they have, there's a lot of producers out there.  And, that small slice is growing -- it's around 10% now, while 10 years ago, it was 3%.

The best thing to do, really, is explore.  Come to your Champagne with an open mind, forget what you "know" about the big houses, and discover what terroir really means in sparkling wine.  So buy a bottle with an unknown name, a little "RM" on the bottom of the label, and the name of a town half a world away, and preferably one with the words "Grand cru."  Taste.  Enjoy.  Be a part of the revolution in Champagne.  Say "no" to wine as a product, and "yes" to wine as an expression of place.

¹ This is lifted pretty much wholesale from Terry Thiese, who is the visionary leading the trend to RM Champagnes.  Good writers borrow, and all that,  but I felt I had to credit him.

Maestro, the wine, please...

Over on Dr. Vino (a fine blog that I recommend whole-heartedly if you're into the politics and economics of wine), I learned of a new Champagne closure, called "Maestro."  Duval-Leroy is introducing it with their 2004 Clos du Bouvieres.  A video of it in action can be found here.

Basically, to open the bottle, you pry the lever up, and with a pop, the cap comes off.  Under the tip of the lever is a crown cap, which is what Champagne is aged under, and a plastic hood that covers the crown cap and lever mechanism.

Effectively, it's a single-use beer-bottle opener for Champagne.

Which is pretty cool.  I like alternative closures!  For still wine, there's basically 5 methods of closing off a bottle of wine:  real cork, plastic cork, Stelvin/screwcap, Zork, and Vinolock.  Real and plastic cork are pretty well known, as is Stelvin.  The Zork is a primarily Austrlian closure (you can find it on Whoop Whoop and Red Knot wines from Australia, although Don Sebastiani uses it for his Plungerhead zins from California), made of plasticized vegetable oil, it looks like nothing if not a single-malt Scotch or LBV Port closure -- there's a bit that sticks into the neck of the bottle, and a covering cap.  It also makes a satisfying pop when removed from the bottle (something I find sadly lacking in the Stelvin).  Vinolock is a similar method, using inert glass and a silicone O-ring that are covered by a foil.  It looks quite similar to a normal cork, and has all the advantages of Stelvin in addition.  It's mostly used for wines from Sicily (Cusumano uses it on their wines), although Molly Dooker used it last year.

Anyhow, there is a wine bottled right now  with something like the Maestro -- Chandon's Etoile, which is bottled directly under crown cap.  Yes, that's right, you need a beer bottle opener to pop that bottle open!

All in all, it's a bad time to be a cork farmer; more on that later, I suspect.

Photo from Alcan Packaging.

Bubbles!

Nothing really captures the idea of "celebration," in most people's minds, like sparkling wine.

Note that I didn't say "Champagne," but "sparkling wine."  Champagne is the best-known sparkling wine, but it's only one of many, and only a small proportion of all sparkling wines are Champagnes (to make an analogy, all Ferraris are cars, but not every car is a Ferrari).  Sparkling wines come in generally two familes, "traditional," and "Charmat" method wines.  The former is summed up as taking wine, adding yeast and sugar, capping it off (with a crown cap, like might be found on a beer!), letting it rest for months or years in a rack that is slowly elevated until the bottles are upright, eventually freezing the neck of the bottle and opening it to remove the yeast, then adding a little sugar ("Dosage"), and corking it for sale.  It's called "secondary fermentation in bottle."

The Charmat method is a bit simpler, in that the sugar and yeast and wine go into a big tank that is sealed, the secondary fermentation happens, then the liquid is physically strained and pumped into bottles, where it's corked and sold.  Much less expensive.

A quick guide to the bulk of the sparkling wines you'll see:

• Cava.  Spanish sparkling wine, generally inexpensive, light, and easy to drink.  Most cost around $10, and very few are more than $20.  Made using the traditional Champagne fermentation method, but with different grapes (traditionally, Macabeo, Xarel-lo, and Parellada.  Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are now allowed.). 
• Prosecco.  Both the descriptor of, and the name of the grape that make a light, clean Italian sparkling wine.  Often just a hint of sweetness in it.  From around $10 for the inexpensive stuff to about $20-$30 for the upper end (Prosecco di Valdobbiadene DOC). Made using the less expensive Charmat method. 
• Cap Classique.  South African sparkling wine, traditionally made with Sauvignon Blanc and Chenin Blanc, although many producers now use two of the "traditional"Champagne grapes -- Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.  Traditional method wine.  Not too common in the US, but the ones I've seen run $15-$20. 
• Cremant.  French sparkling wine from regions other than Champagne.  Alsace and Burgundy make the best examples, Cremant d'Alsace and Cremant de Burgogne, with the Loire right behind.  Grapes vary from place to place, but the quality of the traditional fermentation is generally reasonably high.  $15-$30, depending on the producer and the wine.
• Californian sparkling wine.  Sometimes labeled "California Champagne," quality can vary from the very bad (Cooks, Andre, and Coppola's Sofia come to mind) to the quite good (Schramsberg), and everywhere in between.  Can be made with any method, from Charmat (Cooks and Andre do this), to traditional method (Schramsberg and most of the French-owned houses do this), to literally injecting carbon dioxide into white wine like it was soda (Coppola's Sofia does this)!  Quality varies widely, as does price, from $5 to $50.
• Washington/Oregon sparkling wine.  Surprisingly high quality, often affordable (even Domaine Ste Michelle, at under $15, is quite good, if a bit heavy-handed with the dosage).  Can be either method, but most seem to stick with traditional.
• Champagne.  The sine qua non of bubbles; the one that others want to be (although, that's partly due to good marketing).  Traditional method, only 3 grapes allowed to be planted in the region (Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier, although Arbane, Petit Meslier, and Pinot Blanc are allowed for use, but not planting).  Prices start around $30 and go up into "How much do you want to spend?" territory.

That's just a starter -- sparkling wines come in a dizzying variety of types.  Taking it in turns:

• Blanc de Blancs means the wine is made from white grapes only -- Chardonnay in Champagne.
• Blanc de Noirs means there's no white grapes in the blend -- in Champagne, that'd be Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier only.
• Brut means there's very little sugar added during dosage -- officially, in Champagne, that'd be 6-15 grams of sugar per liter.
• Extra Dry means there's a bit more sugar -- 12-20 grams per liter in Champagne.
• Demi Sec means even sweeter wine -- 33-50 grams per liter.
• Nonvintage means the wine is made from a blend of "mother wines," to match a consistant house style -- this is often done in Champagne (indeed, most producers view their nonvintage wine as their bread and butter), as well as in Porto (a post for another day...).  Nonvintage sparkling wine is meant to be consumed rather soon after purchase; within a year or so at most.
• Vintage means all the wine was harvested in a declared vintage year -- recent years that show promise for vintage-dated Champagne include 2002, 1999, 1998, and 1996, although different producers decide to make vintage-dated wines on their own.  Vintage sparkling wine can be cellar-worthy, lasting 5-10 years.

So what is the best?  Ultimately, there is no magic formula to determine it.  However, the Champagne producers (well, all wine producers, but the Champagne houses have done it best) would like to convince you that their wine is the best, hands-down.  They spend tons of money on advertising, paying celebreties to publically endorse their products (something they've done since the 1800's!).

Personally, I'd advocate voting with your tastebuds; blind-tasting sparkling wines can be fun.  However, I'll note something interesting; in the recent book, The Wine Trials, a number of sparkling wines were blind-tasted.  The "winner," was Domaine Ste Michelle Brut.  My tasting note on the wine (tasted non-blind):

A nose of green apple and lemon, with a bit of toast. Flavors to match, with addition of pear. Not quite a true brut, more between a brut and extra-dry, slightly sweet. Not the most complex wine in the world, but quite nice overall.  84 points.

In other words, it was pleasant and a little sweet.  Which is good -- the American palate tends to like sweet wine, even though we're told we should like drier stuff (we're raised on soda, after all).

Oh, and what finished near the bottom of the list of bubblies from The Wine Trials?  Dom Perignon -- Moet's "tete de cuvee," their best (vintage, blanc de blancs) wine.  For what it's worth, I preferred Domane Ste Michelle to Dom as well (alas, I last had Dom several years ago, and have no tasting note for it).  Proof that $15 wine can be better than $150 wine, when the labels are hidden.

So is any one better than the other?  The long and short of it is... none is.