The changing face of Champagne

There are 15,000 grape growers in Champagne, farming 270,000 different parcels of land. But there are perhaps only 30 or so houses whose names could be considered major 'brands'. Champagne is by and large a region split into two camps: those who make wine, and those who grow grapes. The 'Château model', of a great house that makes wine solely from vineyards that surround the estate, does not apply here. Or at least, it didn't until recently.

The vast majority of growers traditionally sold their grapes to one of the big houses or the local co-operative. However, there has been a revolution in the last decade or so, with the emergence of 'grower Champagnes'. Many grape growers have become Recoltants Manipulants, making and bottling wines under their own name. Now, an estimated 5,000 growers are also 'RM', and of the 150 cooperative cellars, 60 bottle rather than shipping wine off in tankers.

Although undoubtedly driven by commercial interests, the knock-on effect of grower Champagnes has been a renewed emphasis on terroir, and a renewed emphasis on vintage wines. Most growers simply do not have the storage capacity

or financial resources to cellar several vintages as 'reserve' wines, so by default they produce wines where each harvest is vinified, aged and bottled as the product of a single vintage.

This has also led to new thinking about Champagne as a wine. Whilst the NV character is all about consistency, bottle after bottle, year after year, the wines made by the Recoltants Manipulants precisely reflect the conditions of the vintage and their particular vineyard sites.

NV, Vintage and Prestige Cuvée

Non-vintage wines still totally dominate the market for Champagne, and that market is buoyant. Ever since the fizz-frenzy of the millennium, the sound of Champagne corks popping has become the backdrop to UK wine consumption. Whilst promotional pricing on the high street has made NV Champagne more affordable than ever, there is still no other wine that seduces Joe Public to happily splash out Ł20 a bottle.

At the other extreme, the 'Prestige Cuvées' represent the pinnacle of achievement. Wines like Champagne Krug, Roederer's Cristal, Möet et Chandon's Dom Perignon or Veuve Clicquot's Grande Dame are the ultimate expressions of the house concerned: the wine that represents their finest vineyards, grapes, and the Cellarmaster's know-how. Yet the wines fall squarely in the 'luxury goods' category, with ads in upmarket lifestyle magazines jostling with Rolex and BMW to capture the attention of readers.

So if the mass-market NV and the elite Prestige Cuvée each knows its place, just where does that leave 'ordinary' vintage Champagne? In some ways this is a wine in limbo, without the luxury appeal of Cuvée Prestige, but not clearly distinguished from NV in the eyes of most consumers. I would hazard a guess that the bulk of people staring at two bottles from the same house on a supermarket shelf will be hugely puzzled as to why one costs £25 and the other £35. The fact that one bears a vintage date will mean nothing to them.

where next for vintage?

So is NV Champagne too expensive, or is the vintage stuff too cheap? Vintage Champagne usually represents a fastidious selection of the very best material, and is aged longer in the cellars. Yet it is sold for just 50% more than its mass-market cousins. In a wine like Port, the price difference between non-vintage 'ruby' and vintage wines is at a hugely different ratio, the latter commanding around 400% more. The quality ratios may be markedly different too perhaps, but nevertheless the problem remains that vintage Champagne does not enjoy clear blue water between it and the fighting-weight NVs.

Vintage Champagne represents one of the world's great wine buys. My own cellar contains a fair proportion of these wines, crafted with extraordinary care and capable of being cellared for decades.

Perhaps the time has come to really make vintage Champagne a specialist category for the connoisseur and collector. The great wines of Burgundy use the same grapes as Champagne, so could vintage Champagne offer a more Burgundian experience, with the region's various sub-regional terroirs being expressed at village, premier and grand cru levels?

This might mean the creation of new Appellation Contrôlée - unthinkable for some - but it could offer a proposition that is dramatically new for Champagne. As patterns of climate change promise more and more vintage years, production could be increased a little and - with a little consumer education - the 'new vintage' category could leave NV for everyday enjoyment, Prestige Cuvée for lottery winners and city slickers, and make vintage Champagne the choice of discerning wine lovers. A chance to taste wines that speak of grape, terroir and vintage, at a still affordable price.

four vintage houses

Below, a visit to two of Champagne's most interesting Recoltants Manipulants, Henri Giraud and Roger Coulon. In part II I visit the great houses of Krug and Pol Roger, to taste vintage Champagnes dating back to 1914.

Champagne Henri Giraud

Claude Giraud has vineyards in the district of Aÿ, and produces two labels: Champagne Francois Hemart and Champagne Henri Giraud. Francois Hemart is a non-vintage range, with all fruit coming from Grand Cru villages in Aÿ, whilst wines under the Giraud label are only released as vintage wines, again with all fruit from the best vineyard sites in Aÿ. The vintage wine sells for upwards of 100 euros per bottle, putting it slap-bang in prestige cuvée territory.

Claude tells me that Aÿ is known for low acidity, on average yielding only around 4gm/l of total acidity. Yet despite this, Claude's wines do go through malolactic, and he harvests late. He says pays great attention to the 'natural balance' of the harvest, and finds that his very carefully managed S02 levels are one of the keys to the ageability of his wines.

In Champagne there are around 150 houses that vinify in wooden barrels. Claude started to use barrels in the early 80s, after researching how Champagne was made in previous centuries. He found that the local Forest of Argonne had been the source of much of the village's wood, but the forest having not been managed for decades, he bought 2nd hand Vosges barrels from Meursault.

Now, Claude has worked with other growers in the village and has managed to revive a barrel industry in the Argonne Forest, and is proud of these barrels in his cellars. The Henri Giraud wines spend 12 months in wood.

Claude explains that his 10 hectares of vineyard is on a south-facing slopes with only 20cm of topsoil on 200 metres of chalk. His youngest vineyard is 30 years old, and he farms with minimum use of chemicals. He believes the reason he can make a vintage every year is because of the quality of his vineyards, and the care he takes of them.

Certainly a tasting of Vin Clair from oak was extraordinary: a round, full Chardonnay of 12% ABV, as rich and mouthfilling as a white Burgundy. The non-vintage Francois Hemart Brut Grand Cru is a terrific Champagne with fat, lemony fruit and real structure, whilst the two vintages tasted showed the ripeness and richness of Giraud's vineyards and his use of oak.

See current stockists of Henri Giraud on wine-searcher.

Champagne Henri Giraud Grand Cru Fut de Chêne 1998
70% Pinot Noir, 30% Chardonnay. Quite a bold lemony colour with green reflections. Very fine nose, with just little lime zest notes and almost tropical hints of waxy citrus fruit and some ripe cherry nuances. There are hints of dried apricot in a subtle, stylish nose. In the mouth the mousse is quite fine and races across the tongue, with very crisp fruit - lots of lemon and lime that is zesty and racy. There's breadth and a mouthfilling weight, but it stays very focused and structured. 91.

Champagne Henri Giraud Grand Cru Fut de Chêne 1993
Darker, burnished golden colour. More mature, truffle and undergrowth notes with a toffeed element and quite ripe, cabbagy notes not unlike a ripe white Burgundy. Low carbonation, with a gentley prickly mousse, and again a very nicely lively palate. Racy orange notes, and loads of zippy lemon fruit and acidity. Lovely boiled sweet edges of sour plum and green apple, and fine length here. Just a hint of sweet fruited and buttery richness, but stays razor sharp in the finish. Very fine. 93.

Champagne Roger Coulon

Eric and Isabelle Coulon run a successful and sizeable business. Their annual production of 90,000 bottles compares to an annual production at a house like Pol Roger of 1.5 million bottles. At their immaculate cellars in the village of Vrigny, Rogers shows me a map of his vineyards, with nine hectares spread across five different villages. Around 40% of his plantings are of Pinot Meunier and he is fiercely ready to defend this variety, which he says is more than capable of the highest quality, especially with his old vines (average age of 38 years). His is a massal selection, with no 'clones' used, which he insists preserves a character for these wines that his been in his family for eight generations.

Like Claude Giraud, the Coulon's practice Lutte Raisonée, 'reasoned agriculture', where minimal herbicides and pesticides are used, and instead

techniques like 'sexual confusion' are employed to limit the breeding of pests. Eric Coulon also uses only wild yeasts in fermentation, which he says "bring to the wine all their subtlety, allowing the soil to 'express' itself." Wooden barrels are also used to age some of reserve wines.

Coulon's wines are very much like the man: he is an exuberant and passionate character, who opens each bottle with a ferocious pop, and pours each glass with gusto. The wines are vivacious and lively. The Champagne Grande Reserve is a fine NV, somewhat in the rich, brioche style of Gosset's Grand Reserve, and the vintages are fruity and direct, but with a quite steely character at their core.

Roger Coulon Champagne Vintage 2002
At time of writing it is the 2000 that is on sale. This wine will be shipped in Spring 2008, and is not yet disgorged. It is a blanc de noirs, made with 50% each of Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir, the Pinot Meunier almost 60 years old. Exuberantly bubbly, with a powerful stream of tiny bubbles streaming through a light golden wine, flecked with emerald green. Fine vinous nose, with lemony notes and a small biscuity background. Some spice and herbal nuances add interest. On the palate it is very fruity, with small nuances of luscious, almost tropical pineapple fruit playing against a lemony, firm, pithy acidity. This is a hugely vivacious wine, with plenty of racy elegance. 91.

Roger Coulon Champagne Vintage 2000
80% Chardonnay with 20% Pinot Meunier. Bold golden yellow colour. As always with this house, exuberantly bubbly. He chardonnay performed very well this year, whilst the Pinot Meunier was unexceptional. A touch of buttery vegatility on the nose here, with really quite lush fruit. There's a touch of rotted orange and rancid butter that gives quite complex notes to this wine. In the mouth it is quite rich and full, still with a very lively, racy mousse, but with that slightly sour apple and sour orangy fruit quality. This is a less linear, focused style perhaps, but has plenty of mouthfilling fruit and good balance. 90.

Roger Coulon Champagne Vintage 1999
80% Chardonnay with 20% Pinot Meunier. Very pale lemony gold colour - paler than the 2000 at this stage. Very appealing, vinous nose, with a vanilla and ripe orchard fruit character, and no sign of any oxidation or yeasty notes. A very clean style of wine, which at this stage is tight and a touch closed. On the palate the mousse is quite crisp and a touch aggressive (but this was served slightly too cold). Fine, tight, very steely character to this wine, with plenty of lemony fruit. There's a sherbetty brightness to this wine, and the acidity is terrifically vibrant, but I feel the too cold serving temperature is making it feel rather too aggressive in this tasting.

Roger Coulon Champagne Vintage 1990
Pale to medium gold colour. Lovely nose, with gentle yeastiness and notes of spices and coffee coming through. Biscuity, with some vanilla and little floral scents. Plenty of fruit, with peach down and still some lemony freshness. On the palate the generosity fills out, with a very racy, steely character. Crisp mousse, terrific fruit here, and the maturity really allows charm and fullness to come through that for me complements the firm structured, very steely character. Served from Magnum. 90.

part II - the vintage wines of Pol Roger and Krug