Past Issues: Skinny Guide to French Wine -- Champagne

by Robyn Tinsley, Managing Editor

We’re starting the Skinny Guide to French Wine with Champagne for a couple of reasons. First, it’s just perfect timing. Millennium. Year 2000. New Year’s Eve. All that. Second, Champagne, for all its history and complexities, is a relatively finite subject: smallish geographical area, three grapes used, fairly easily grasped.

Look, there’s lots you could learn about Champagne. Entire books are written on the subject. The purpose of this article is to jump-start you. You’ll learn some basics about reading labels and some specific producers to look for. At the end there is some extra credit information for you teacher’s pet, front row types. You know who you are.

Reading Champagne labels:

The first basic to learn is the sugar content of a bottle of Champagne. This information is required to be on every Champagne label. Champagne is classified as:

With very few exceptions, you’ll see and want to buy brut. This is for any food matching, including desserts. Very occasionally, you might try an extra dry.

Grapes used. There are three grapes used to make Champagne: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier. Sometimes, a label will tell you what the wine is made of: Blancs de blancs is Champagne produced exclusively from white grapes (Chardonnay). It is invariably a very elegant, fine, and delicate wine. Blanc de noirs is Champagne produced exclusively from black grapes (Pinot Noir and/or Pinot Meunier). It is rather the opposite of blanc de blanc – concentrated, with strong wine and fruit flavors and aromas. If neither of these descriptions appear on the label, chances are that the wine is a blend of the three Champagne grapes.

Rosés are a slightly different animal, as they are not always made entirely of the three Champagne grapes. Blending in a little red wine – about 10 to 15% - is allowed under strict regulations.

Vintage vs. nonvintage. Vintage champagne is produced exclusively from a single harvest. A vintage is only declared in years when the maturation of the grapes has been exceptional and their unique characteristics deserve to be singled out.

On the other hand, it is often said that a Champagne house can be judged by the quality of its nonvintage brut. The lesson? Vintage champagne is a pretty safe bet for excellent quality, but you absolutely can, and should, buy nonvintage as well.

Cru words. My advice? Ignore ‘em. You extra credit types, see below.

One other term: cuvée spéciale (or special cuvée). This is a good thing. It signifies a wine of excellence, produced in very small quantities, and is considered the "jewel of the brand."

Okay! Now you know how to read a champagne label! Wasn't too hard, huh?

Here are a few specific champagnes to look for now:

Charles Heidsieck 1990 Brut Champagne ($45)

Bollinger 1990 Brut Champagne Grand Annee ($68)

Gossett Nonvintage Brut Champagne Grand Reserve ($42)

Heidsieck Monopole Nonvintage Brut Champagne Diamont Blanc ($50)

Henri Abele Nonvintage Brut Champagne ($23) (this one is a personal favorite!)

Louis Roederer Nonvintage Brut Champagne Brut Premier ($40)

Finally, here's that extra credit information. This stuff might be good to throw around on New Year’s Eve around 10pm, when the evening is dragging and people are wondering if they’re really going to make it to midnight.

Dosage (pronounced doSAZSH). Individual bottles of Champagne under go a process called "disgorgement" that removes sediment. The empty space left in the bottles after disgorgement is then filled with a liqueur known as liqueur de dosage, which is a mixture of reserve wines from previous harvests and cane sugar. The resulting level of sugar content ("residual sugar") in the wine leads to the appropriate extra brut, brut, etc. classification.

Cru. Originally, the cru system was established to distinguish between grape-growing regions of different qualities. The highest rating, 100%, went to so-called grands crus. These regions (or villages, or cru), were located in the heart of Champagne – in Reims and Epernay. The further away the village, or cru, from Reims, the lower its classification. Originally the lowest rating was 25%. Today, due to both financial (the vineyard classification is used to calculate the price per kilo of grapes) and quality factors, the lowest rating is 80%. Grands crus have a 100% classification. Premiers crus have a 90-00% classification. Finally, there are "peripheral" crus representing the remaining Champagne communes with a classification of 80-89%.

How do they get the bubbles in there? The bubbles happen quite naturally during a second fermentation of the wine in the bottle. The explanation must start with the soil and climate of the Champagne region. The soil is primarily chalky seabed that must have topsoil added for planting. Combine this with the rainy climate, and you have a long growing season and late harvests. This, then, prevents newly fermenting wines from "finishing" (i.e., completely transforming sugar content into alcohol) before winter’s cold stops the process. In the spring, though, when temperatures warm up again, the yeasts wake up and get going again. If you’ve ever made bread, you’ve seen yeast bubble and foam when mixed with liquid and allowed to sit. It is this second fermentation process that results in Champagne’s bubbles. The bubbles stay… well… bubbly, because of the pressure-proof glass bottle and corking process.