Champagne Bounces Back

Recent reports in the press suggest that Champagne sales may have reached record levels in 2021 after a dismal 2020, but these strong figures are more than just people popping corks as a respite to the pandemic. We rated more than 300 Champagnes in the last year and we believe that the quality of the world’s most famous sparkling wine has never been better. Champagne is on a roll!

“In spite of the crisis, from 2019 to 2021 we doubled our sales in the U.S.,” Stephen Leroux, the managing director of Champagne Charles Heidsieck, told me with a big smile on his face. And many of his colleagues at the leading Champagne houses were also more than happy with how rapidly key markets around the world have recovered from the crisis.

A January story in Drinks Business said sales of Champagne could hit 320 million bottles for 2021, which would be the second-highest level of this century. Jean-Marie Barillère, the president of Union des Maisons de Champagne, was quoted as saying that the uptick was due to a strong performance from the U.S., Britain, Canada and Australia, with Germany and Spain also contributing to demand.

Although eight of the top 10 best-rated Champagnes in this report are Cuvée Prestige Champagnes, this category is not typically a key driver of sales. Most of the sales action, in fact, is coming at the regular non-vintage (NV) Brut level, which accounts for almost two-thirds of all Champagne trade.

Charles Heidsieck’s Champagne Brut Réserve NV is an excellent example of this. It rated 94 points thanks to its impressive depth and wonderful balance of vibrant and mature character. It is distributed globally and sells for an average price of about $45 – eminently affordable in comparison with what some of the Cuvée Prestige Champagnes cost.

THE PERFECT BUBBLY:  James tastes the Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs 2008 with Taittinger President Vitalie Taittinger.

The same – including price and score – is true of the excellent Louis Roederer Champagne Collection 242 Brut NV, and there were a good number of other  pleasant surprises in the realm of moderately priced wines. That’s excellent news for Champagne lovers right around the world.

A decade ago it seemed that the rise of international interest in grower Champagnes from small producers working only, or primarily, with wines from their own vineyards might challenge the Grand Marques – the famous houses that built the global reputation of champagne.

READ MORE: TOP 100 WINES OF FRANCE 2021

Many wine industry figures wondered if those two groups of producers might be antagonistic to one another. However, it strikes us now that they complement one another very well. Let me explain.

The old argument of the Grand Marques against the growers’ products was that they lacked consistency of quality and style, and this was sometimes very true. Also, there was also some truth in what the growers said about the products from the Grand Marques: some of them were a bit boring.

We’re convinced that grower Champagnes getting wider international distribution than anyone (including the growers!) previously thought possible has resulted in greater consistency of quality and style in their Champagnes, and that the pressure from the growers’ unexpected success has led to more interesting Champagnes from the Grand Marques. But from our tastings, Grand Marques still make the very top Champagnes, even though grower Champagnes can delight with their quirky character.

The contrast in scale in Champagne is truly staggering. Georges Laval in Cumieres in the Vallee de la Marne sub-region has just 2.5 hectares. His Les Chênes Cumières Premier Cru Brut Nature 2017 is highly rated, but production is very limited and it is only available in magnums.

On the other hand, the largest producer, Moet & Chandon, accounts for roughly a tenth of the entire region’s production. Their Grand Vintage Collection 1996 was also extremely impressive at a recent tasting of this champagne stretching back to the 1921 vintage.

Between them lie smaller houses and larger growers that often specialize in a particular style of Champagne. For example, Pierre Gimonnet, based in the village of Cuis in the Cotes des Blancs sub-region, where the chardonnay grape dominates, specializes in blanc de blancs champagnes made from 100 percent chardonnay. All four different bottlings of Special Club 2015 from Pierre Gimonnet were stunning.

Time is a vital factor in the Champagne equation, with the second alcoholic fermentation in the bottle creating the bubbles. The laws of the appellation d’origine controlee that regulate the production of Champagne require it to spend at least 15 months in the bottle on the lees.

This means even the cheapest bottle of Champagne must be at least two years old when it hits the shelf, and three years is the norm for Brut NV. However, many of the most exciting bottles we tasted this year were much older than that. Time adds aromatic complexity and gives the creaminess (through lees autolysis) that harmonizes the naturally pronounced acidity of Champagne.

For example, the super-complex, richly textured Krug Champagne Brut 2008 that we judged to be a perfect Champagne was released at 13 years of age! Even Krug’s stunning Grande Cuvée 169ème Edition NV –  a Prestige Cuvée – is based on the 2013 vintage, plus a good 40 percent of older reserve wines.

READ MORE: OUR TOP 100 WINES OF 2021

GRAND CUVÉE: Laurent Perrier's Grand Siècle N.23 Magnum was one of four Champagnes we rated 99 points.

With its imposing architecture and the ancient crayeres cellars dug into its chalk bedrock, the Champagne region can appear timeless, but this belies the changes that are happening there, at least in terms of sustainable production: since it became the first wine region to undertake a carbon footprint assessment in 2002, it has successfully reduced that footprint by 20 percent.

Until recently, progress in Champagne on moving away from the use of chemical sprays in the vineyards was slow, but now 28 percent of the vineyards are farmed sustainably, and the region has an official goal of eliminating herbicides by 2030.

“In 2020 we moved away completely from herbicides and are very glad to promote sustainable viticulture since 2007,” explained Benoit, the cellar master of Moet & Chandon. “Our latest experiment is a fleet of 12 electric tractors.”

As we said, Champagne is on a roll!

– Stuart Pigott, Senior Editor