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Slideshow
In focus: Brut non-vintage Champagne
Vintage Champagne may excite the experts, but non-vintage expressions require more skill to make. Lucy Shaw discovers the painstaking methods that cellar masters use to ensure their NVs represent the DNA of their house.
Hervé Deschamps, the longtime cellar master of Perrier-Jouët
While glitzy prestige cuvées, long-awaited vintage releases, on-trend rosés and elegant blanc de blancs tend to turn heads and receive the lion’s share of column inches written about Champagne, the often overlooked brut non-vintage is the engine room of a Champagne house and usually accounts for around 80% of its total sales.
While perhaps less romantic than vintage Champagne, which is able to offer its imbibers a snapshot of a single year, distilling warm September sunshine and cold November rain into a liquid expression of the cards Mother Nature dealt the grape growers that year, brut non-vintage is an equally compelling proposition if you consider the hundreds of components that go into it. Cellar masters are the magicians of the wine world, able to create a consistent style of wine each year amid increasingly erratic weather conditions.
Like conductors getting the best out of their orchestras, the chef de cave must decide which grapes from which plots will end up in the final blend, and must be equipped with the ability to see into the future, imagining what the often aggressively acidic base wines will taste like in sparkling form. They must also be able to imagine how they will gracefully blend with one another into an elegant and instantly recognisable ensemble. Given the magnitude of the task, which needs to be undertaken each year, brut non-vintage as a style deserves more respect than it gets.
Séverine Frerson left Piper-Heidsieck earlier this year for Perrier-Jouët
While most Champagnes produced during the 19th century were sweet, a style particularly favoured by the Russians, in 1846 Perrier-Jouët boldly broke with tradition when it released its lightly dosed Cuvée K, which was designed specifically for British palates. Derided at first for being too severe and ‘brute’-like, the visionary house was ahead of the curve, and the dry ‘brut’ style eventually became the norm in the region.
“Cuvée K was dosed at a sugar level of less than 5% – daringly little in an era when Champagnes regularly contained up to 40% sugar. Perrier-Jouët became renowned for its dry Champagnes, which it was able to produce because its high quality grapes required very little added sugar – a philosophy maintained to this day,” says the house’s seventh cellar master, Hervé Deschamps.
After 35 years at the helm, Deschamps will soon be handing over the reins to Séverine Frerson, who moved to Perrier- Joust in September, just four months after being named the chef de cave of Piper-Heidsieck.
Proving how integral it is for newly appointed cellar masters to fully understand a house’s specific style, over the next few years Frerson will work alongside Deschamps to learn all of his secrets so as to preserve and uphold Perrier-Jouët’s elegant signature style, characterised by its delicate floral profile and notes of peach, pear and honeysuckle.
“Every harvest brings its share of challenges, and it is my duty to maintain the consistency of the house,” says Deschamps. “We’re seeing more incidences of frost and hailstorms in spring than we used to, which is affecting the vines. Similarly, as summers are getting warmer, the harvest starts earlier each year. Tasting the vins clairs and imagining how they are going to age is the hardest part of my job.”
Having a discernable and unique house style is a way for Champagne houses to win loyalty in a crowded and competitive market. Consumers tend to flirt with different styles of brut non-vintage when they first begin their Champagne journey but soon discover which house styles align with their palates, and often end up staying loyal to one or two brands. Among the houses known for using a high proportion of Pinot Noir in their brut non-vintage blends are Bollinger, Piper-Heidsieck and Veuve Clicquot, with Bollinger using 60% Pinot in its blend and Piper and Veuve between 50%-55%.
Bollinger’s brut non-vintage, ‘Special Cuvée’, was given its name in 1911 from owner George Bollinger’s British agent. More than 85% of the grapes that go into the expression hail from grands and premiers crus sites. Special Cuvée benefits from the addition of reserve wines that have been aged in magnum for up to 15 years. Adding further complexity, the fizz is aged for more than 30 months before release, leading to notes of roasted apples, brioche, walnuts and spice.
Like Perrier-Jouët, Veuve Clicquot was early to the brut non-vintage party, releasing its now iconic Yellow Label in 1877 to cater to the British desire for dry Champagnes. Cellar master Dominique Demarville is the current custodian of the brand, and each year must create a style that delivers both power (predominantly from the Pinot) and finesse (imbued by the Chardonnay). Helping to maintain Yellow Label’s signature style, which marries intensity with freshness, Demarville uses a high proportion of reserve wine in the blend each year – up to 45% in some years. Piper-Heidsieck, meanwhile, sources grapes from more than 100 crus for its Cuvée Brut, and uses an average of 20% reserve wines aged between a year and 20 years old.
Moët & Chandon’s chef de cave, Benoit Gouez
Both Perrier-Jouët and Moët & Chandon use an equal amount of Pinot Meunier in their brut non-vintage as Pinot Noir – 40% – and just 20% Chardonnay. Created in 1869, Moët Imperial is characterised by its fruitiness and vivacity. Cellar master Benoît Gouez works with more than 100 base wines and up to 30% reserve wine to create a final blend that offers notes of green apple, white flowers, peach and pear. Perrier-Jouët’s Deschamps, meanwhile, works with Pinot predominantly from the Montagne de Reims and the Marne Valley, the latter of which is also the source of his Meunier.
Two maisons that share an identical grape blend but maintain their own defined house styles are Charles Heidsieck and Louis Roederer, both of which craft their brut non-vintage from 40% Chardonnay, 40% Pinot Noir and 20% Pinot Meunier. Roederer’s Brut Premier gains richness and complexity from the inclusion of 15% of reserve wines that have been aged in oak from between two and six years. While the minimum ageing time for brut NV is 15 months, Roederer’s chef de cave, Jean- Baptiste Lécaillon, insists on resting his for four years on its lees and a further six months in bottle, leading to a fizz that is both fresh and and weighty, with notes of apple, cherry, brioche and almond.
Cyril Brun, Charles Heidsieck’s chef de cave
One of the last houses to launch a brut non-vintage, Charles Heidsieck’s Brut Réserve didn’t reach English shores until the 1960s, with the house traditionally favouring vintage releases. Charles Heidsieck is unique in its consistently high use of reserve wines in its brut NV.
Cellar master Cyril Brun includes 40% of reserve wines in his blend each year, made up of equal parts Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from up to 12 vintages that have an average age of 10 years. This high percentage of reserve wine, coupled with five years’ lees ageing, gives the fizz a level of richness and complexity you would usually only expect to find in much older Champagnes.
In a single glass you’ll find everything from apricot and almond to plum, pistachio and pastry flavours. Brun’s goal is to successfully marry freshness and complexity year in year out. “Reserve wines are the quintessence of consistency, but Mother Nature can sometimes give you a harvest that is already very similar to the house’s style, which makes the job easier.
To be well prepared for the future, I have to make sure I have enough diversity among the reserve wines to be able to face any particular type of harvest that comes my way,” he says.
“The biggest challenge is trying to reproduce the same wine with new components each year. You’re constantly thinking about the present and the future at the same time, keeping some of the best wines aside as reserve for the future, while making exactly the wine you want to make at that moment.”
His predecessor, Thierry Roset, refined the style of the blend during his tenure, shrinking the number of crus used in the blend from more than 100 to 50. “As a result, we gained more precision and texture in the blend,” says Brun, who sources his Chardonnay predominantly from Oger and Vertus, and Pinot from Charles Heidsieck Brut Réserve has one of the highest dosage levels of a brut NV, at 11g/l, along with Louis Roederer Brut Premier.
Pol Roger is one of the few houses to use a blend of equal parts Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay, sourced from 30 crus in the Montagne de Reims, Marne Valley and Côte des Blancs, with Pinot Noir providing the power, Meunier the freshness and Chardonnay the finesse. Pol Roger Brut Reserve boasts notes of green apple, white flowers, brioche and hints of honey.
Like Charles Heidsieck, Pol Roger was late to the brut non-vintage game, first releasing its ‘white foil’, as it came to be known, because of the colour of the foil used on the neck of the bottle rather than the gold used on its vintage wines, in 1956, by request of Pol’s then UK importer, the Reuss brothers. Shortly after its release, ‘white foil’ became popular with British regiments such as the King’s Hussars and the Queen’s Royal Lancers, and its army associations continue to this day.
“It’s quite hard to achieve a consistent house style,” says cellar master Damien Cambres. “The transmission of knowledge and expertise to the next generation is integral to maintaining the Pol Roger style. A vintage cuvée is the expression of a very good harvest, while the major challenge for brut non-vintage is to make an excellent and consistent wine with different harvests every year. During the final blends, the priority is always given to the NV.”
Chardonnay to the fore in their brut non- vintage blends, the former using 40% and the latter 45%. Best known for its blanc de blancs, Ruinart also uses a high proportion of Chardonnay from the Côtes de Blancs in its R de Ruinart brut non- vintage, including around 40% in the blend each year. Cellar master Frédéric Panaïotis aims for the Chardonnay to shine through in the wine, imbuing it with a floral character, mineral core and notes of nectarine, greengage and blossom.
Alexandre Ponnavoy, chef de cave at Taittinger
Taittinger’s new chef de cave, Alexandre Ponnavoy, who took over from Loïc Dupont in May, has the challenging task of maintaining the house’s signature lively style. One of the most delicate brut non-vintages on the market, thanks to its high Chardonnay content, 60% of the grapes that go into Taittinger Brut Réserve hail from grands and premiers crus sites. First released in the 1930s, today 30% of the blend is made up of reserve wine, and is aged on its lees for three years before release. It typically takes seven months to create.
“The process of making vintage and non-vintage is different because we don’t want to tell the same story in a brut non- vintage as we do in a vintage. A brut non-vintage is a consistent cuvée that acts as a house’s trademark. The biggest challenge is to understand the different wines destined for the blend to have a clear vision of the expression at the time of its launch,” says Ponnavoy.
Hervé Dantan, chef de cave of Lanson
Two houses that have built their reputations on their wines not undergoing malolactic fermentation (MLF) – Lanson and Gosset – have both tweaked their brut NV recipes in recent years. With the arrival of Lanson’s latest chef de cave, Hervé Dantan, in 2013, came the inclusion of MLF in a small portion of the blend for added softness, complexity and consistency.
“Our style needs to be adapted to new consumers, but I don’t want us to lose our soul – Lanson will always be known for mouth-watering freshness,” Dantan told the drinks business in 2016. “We age Black Label on its lees for a minimum of three years, and it has at least six months post-disgorgement ageing.
Behind the non-malo message there is a style that is very complicated to make.” More than half of the grapes that go into Black Label come from grands and premiers crus sites, and up to 40% of reserve wine is used in the blend each year. Dantan crafts Black Label from up to 300 elements each year – a mammoth feat that takes him six months.
In 2008, Gosset began using malolatic fermentation in a portion of its brut non-vintage blend to make it more approachable. Cellar master Odilon de Varine blind tastes all of the vins clairs that go into Grande Reserve – a wine that takes him six months to make.
“I have started to use more Chardonnay in the blend to enhance its freshness and elegance,” he says. Less than 20% of reserve wine is used in Grande Reserve, from three different years, and the fizz carries a dosage of around 7 g/l.
While brut non-vintage as a style is designed to be enjoyed immediately, having undergone sufficient cellar ageing, many chef de caves believe that the wines can benefit from further bottle age, and will develop added complexity, texture and richness over time. “Some brut NVs from the ’80s still taste beautiful; they definitely have great ageing potential,” says de Varine.
Though often overshadowed by the rarer and more niche Champagnes, brut non-vintage is the bedrock of the Champagne industry and offers consumers the purest expression of a house’s signature style. Cellar masters have the daunting task of maintaining the quality and consistency of their brut non-vintage blend, so that when anyone anywhere in the world opens a bottle, they will be greeted with a familiar taste that encapsulates the DNA of the house. Such alchemy deserves greater applause.