Highlights from the Terry Theise Champagne Tasting

The horror.

When Kevin Pike of Michael Skurnik Wines told me the date that had been selected for the Terry Theise Champagne portfolio tasting, that was essentially the first thing that crossed my mind. The horror. It was the same date that had already been announced for the Louis/Dressner tasting. Not just the same date; it was also at exactly the same time. The only saving grace was an invite from Kevin to Theise’s VIP Champagne session, which started one hour earlier than the main Theise and Dressner events. Thanks, Kevin! I figured that one extra hour might just buy enough time to make it to both.

In retrospect, the sensible thing would have been to forego one in favor of the other. Which one, though? In the moment, there was no way I was going to miss either. In the end, that meant each received slightly short shrift in terms of the amount (and focus) of attention I was able to provide. But I’m not sorry. It was a blast, even if I was worn out by the end of the day. And I tasted some great (and not so great) wines at both events.

The biggest issue at the Theise event was time management, which by nature included figuring out what to taste and what to skip. In a room full of grower Champagnes, not to mention a couple of tables of other sparkling wines and even some Burgundy, that was tough work. Here are some highlights, in slightly random order.

A great start – Pierre Gimmonet et Fils:

Overall, the order of producer placement in the room was very well done. The extremely delicate, finessed wines of Pierre Gimmonet et Fils made for a great starting point. Didier Gimmonet was on hand pouring his collection of Blanc de Blancs from the Côtes des Blancs. From a very fine, floral Premier Cru Blanc de Blancs to the creamy, marzipan-laced “Cuvée Gastronome” done in low-pressure Crémant style, and on to the 2002 “Fleuron” that showed notes of fino sherry on a sweet-fruited front end, the entire range was very appealing, showcasing a broad spectrum of what’s possible on the Côtes des Blancs. The real stand-out was their 2000 “Spécial Club” bottling from a selection of old vines in Cramant – dense and loaded with aromas of brioche. The 1999 version, poured from magnum, was higher-toned but suffered in comparison due to its sulfurous nose.

The showstopper – René Geoffroy:

The affable Jean-Baptiste Geoffroy was stationed at Table 6, just shy of mid-point in the room. His collection was the most hedonistic and perhaps the most memorable of the event. And it had the breed and substance to back up the show. None of Geoffroy’s wines undergo malolactic fermentation, thus retaining the requisite spine of acidity for barrel fermentation, which is applied at least in part to most if not all of the wines made at the estate. Their “Expression” Brut NV was the most complete basic cuvée I tasted that day. The “Rosé de Saignée,” 100% Pinot Noir macerated on the skins for about eight hours, showed even better than when I last tasted it – bright and fruity. Jean-Baptiste explained that he wants it to be recognizable even when tasted blind. “Cuvée Volupté,” a Blanc de Blancs purely from the 2004 vintage though not vintage dated, was dense and muscular yet cut across the palate with tensile, laser beam focus. The 2000 “Millésime” Brut, a blend of 30% Pinot Noir and 70% Chardonnay, had a huge nose of spiced apple cake, crème brulée and concentrated minerality. The top bottling, “Cuvée de René Geoffroy,” was just decadent, with a nose of cocoa and chalk followed by rich, creamy textures.

Bring the funk – Aubry:

Aubry is an estate with a long history. Their approach always keeps an eye toward the old school but they’re not afraid to push the envelope. They’ve become best known for championing all but forgotten rarities, once indigenous to Champagne, like Arbanne, Petit Meslier, Pinot Gris (sometimes called Fromenteau) and Pinot Blanc. Their classic wines tend toward broad, rich textures, as evidenced by the basic Brut NV and their 2002 “Aubry de Humbert.” I found “Ivoire et Ebène,” a cuvée of 70% Chardonnay and 30% Pinot Noir aged for nine months in small barrels, to be more curious than compelling, completely dominated by wood. It’s in their “Nombre d’Or” series that the funk comes out to play. “La Nombre d’Or Sablé Blanc des Blancs” in particular smells and tastes akin to a Belgian Lambic ale – wild, sour and full of mineral funk – while “La Nombre d’Or Campanae Veteres Vites” is earthy and stony. Both include Petit Meslier and Arbanne while the “Veteres Vites” also includes Pinot Gris along with all three classic Champagne varieties.

Other houses that showed well:

I was very pleased with the Blanc des Blancs of Varnier-Fannière, all very feminine and cleanly fruit-driven in style. At the same table, the Champagnes of Marc Hébrart also showed well, particularly the “Sélection” Brut NV that displayed cascading layers of fallen leaves and baking spices on its finish.

The Gaston Chiquet table was situated just after Geoffroy in the lineup. Nicolas Chiquet’s wines may have been overshadowed a bit by his neighbor’s but they weren’t far off in their overall consistency and impact. I really liked their “Blanc de Blancs d’Aÿ” NV with its precise nose, linear texture and lovely nose of apples and white flowers. Even though Nicolas was clearly very proud of the 1999 vintage version of the same wine, being poured from magnum, I found it to be in an odd spot, very tight and slightly musty. Very subtly corked, perhaps. His “Cuvée de Réserve” more than made up for it though, with a wonderful nose of potpourri followed by hazelnut torte on the palate and an extremely sapid, gripping texture.

Tasting through the offerings from Jean Lallement et Fils, I was reminded how delicious and complete they are. Their “Réserve” Brut, built on the same blend as their base Brut cuvée but based on a single vintage in most years, is intensely red fruited and sappy. And their rosé, an assemblage of 100% Pinot Noir with 9% still red wine, was truly lovely.

The offerings from Chartogne-Taillet, too, were solid across the board, particularly their generous, creamy Blanc de Blancs Brut and their “Cuvée Fiacre” 2002, which exuded the natural warmth and sensuality of a beautiful woman just waking up after a good night’s sleep.

A few that didn’t impress:

As pleasurable as it was to taste and chat with the lovely Caroline Milan, the wines of her Côtes de Blancs based house, Jean Milan, left me flat. Too many of the wines seemed driven more by commercial positioning than by natural expression.

Moving on to Verzenay, the wines of Pehu-Simonet came across as coarse and rather two-dimensional, especially in comparison to those of their neighbors at Jean Lallement.

And as much as I liked Vilmart & Cie’s 2001 “Grand Cellier d’Or” when last I tasted it, I just couldn’t get my arms around their wines on this day. They came across as confectionery in nature, a sweetness I was assured originated from phenolic ripeness but which my gut told me was just as much the result of high levels of dosage. Certainly well crafted wines, particularly the Burgundian, concentrated 1997 “Coeur de Cuvée,” but in an overall style that had me scratching my head.

A few that got lost in the shuffle:

I was left with generally good impressions of the wines of Henri Goutorbe and A. Margaine but their wines were just a little too subtle to make themselves known in the context of such a grand tasting. Both are at least worthy of further investigation.

Worst of all, a few that I missed entirely:

With all due apologies and regrets, I never managed to visit a few of the tables. I passed by Rudolphe Peters of Pierre Peters, as I’ve tasted their wines often enough that I wanted to focus on lesser known entries. Likewise, I missed Laetitia Billiot at the Henri Billiot table, as the crowd was just too deep on first pass and, much to my chagrin, I never made it back around. And as for Paul Laurent and Egly-Ouriet, all I can say is that the clock was ticking and the Dressner tasting was calling. Details on that should be forthcoming in the near future.

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Grower Bubbles: Tasting Through the Skurnik/Theise Champagne Portfolio

Kevin Pike, Director of National Sales & Marketing for Michael Skurnik Wines, paid a visit at Tria Fermentation School recently to present a double-header look at a goodly portion of the Michael Skurnik/Terry Theise Champagne portfolio. During an afternoon session, he focused on presenting the portfolio to restaurant wine buyers from the Philly area. I headed to the evening session, a public seminar geared primarily at bringing the charms of grower Champagnes to the attention of the students in attendance.


Kevin Pike hard at work.
The welcome wine of the evening was Henri Goutorbe’s “Cuvée Prestige” Brut, a non-vintage blend of 70% Pinot Noir, 5% Pinot Meunier and 25% Chardonnay from various villages in the Vallée de la Marne. Golden and dense, generous in texture and laden with hazelnut and fresh bread notes, it was a solidly centrist starting point. As guests mulled over the first of their many wines of the evening, Kevin blazed through a whirlwind overview of the Méthode Champenoise, followed by an overview of the geography and primary terroirs of the Champagne region.

Following those geographic lines, the tasting portion of the seminar began in earnest with an exploration of a grower Champagne from each of the three primary terroirs being discussed. First up was Pierre Peters’ “Cuvée de Réserve” Brut NV, representing the Cotes des Blancs. Typical of the Cotes and its chalk based soil, this is a Blanc de Blancs, 100% Chardonnay grown in the 100% Grand Cru villages of Oger, Avize, Cramant and Le Mesnil-sur-Oger. With 11 grams of residual sugar, this was well under the Brut cap of 15 grams but one of the most highly dosed of the wines we’d taste from the Skurnik portfolio – non-Brut styles aside – over the course of the evening. That hint of sweetness was well masked and balanced by the wine’s fine acidity as well as by a hint of maturity; the cuvée was based primarily on wine from the 2000 vintage and was fairly recently disgorged. Still, plenty of primary fruit emerged, with suggestions of meyer lemon, winter melon, green apples and a gooseberry twang. I’ve had rough luck with Peters’ Champagnes over the years, encountering far too many bottles that were beat up or tired out; this was showing well.

Representing the Vallée de la Marne, a cool, frost prone region running from outside Chateau Thierry in the west to Epernay in the east, was the Brut “Tradition” NV from Gaston Chiquet. Because of its frost resistance – it’s a late budder and an early ripener – Pinot Meunier is the mainstay of the Marne. That’s reflected in Chiquet’s wine, made up of 45% Meunier, 20% Pinot Noir and 35% Chardonnay, with a dosage of 8.8 grams. This would be a good savory course wine, particularly with white meat and poultry courses, given its firm texture and flavors of red fruits, including fleshy red apples.


One of the evening's tasting lineups.
Though 60% of all Champagne produced originates from the Aube, the southeasternmost district of Champagne, and closer to Chablis than to the rest of Champagne, we would not taste any Aube produce on the evening. The last of the major regions to be represented then was the Montagne de Reims – Pinot Noir country. In spite of the importance of Pinot Noir in the district, the wine we’d taste from Champagne house Aubry, their basic NV Brut, was another Pinot Meunier dominated blend (60%) rounded out by equal parts of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. It was driven by red dominated fruits, with red pear, cherry and cinnamon spice notes on the finish; yeastier than the previous wines, it closed with a distinct flourish of applesauce. Aubry doses their Champagnes using MCR (sterilized, concentrated grape must) rather than cane sugar in the belief that it is a more natural approach.

Moving on to part two of the tasting, Kevin prepped the group on the finer points of blind tasting as Tria staff members made a circuit of the room, pouring four different Champagnes from foil wrapped bottles. Given the theme of the course – Grower Champagnes – and Kevin’s role as a spokesperson for small house bubblies, some of the questions and suggestions he raised began to lead some of the cagier members of the group toward a realization of what was about to ensue.


Tria volunteer staff pouring blind.

• The first wine of the blind flight showed medium, straw like colors in the glass. Very sulfuric, like over-cooked hard boiled eggs with a touch of smoke, on the nose. Course aromas and coarser texture. Red fruit driven palate. Overall, clumsy. I guessed large production, probably from mostly Aube fruit.
  
  
• Wine two was very pale in color, grapey on the nose, with just a touch of acetyl character. Bright, lively acidity and very fresh, young fruit. This was clearly Blanc de Blancs, I thought, most likely with a fairly brief sur latte aging regime.
  
  
• The third suspect in the blind line-up was clearly the sweetest of the wines on the palate. Like the first, it was sulfuric, this time smelling more like an egg salad sandwich. Low acid, coarse mousse and, sulfur aside, far less aromatic than the first two. Even less redeeming than wine number one.
  
  
• The eye alone gave away a lot about the fourth pour, as it showed ever so slightly pink onion skin color in the glass. Absolutely red fruit, along with cinnamon and baking spice on the nose and blueberry compote on the finish. Pinot Noir dominated wine from the Montagne de Reims was my best guess, Bouzy perhaps.

Counting myself among those cagier members of the crowd, I wasn’t surprised to see what happened next. But it was great fun to see how many jaws dropped when the blind bottles were stripped of their foils, particularly from the first. Wine number one was Veuve Clicquot "Carte Jaune". Two was the NV Blanc de Blancs from Varnier-Fannière, from Skurnik’s portfolio. Third up was Moët White Star. The bottle no longer even indicates dryness level but this was clearly on the sweet end of the Extra Dry spectrum. Rounding out the flight was a NV blend of 80% Pinot Noir and 20% Chardonnay with six grams dosage, from Henri Billiot, a small house in Ambonnay, also a member of the Skurnik book.

This idea of showing good and bad examples of the same type in a side by side comparison seems to be a growing phenomenon. It’s not exactly rocket science but it is a very convincing way to demonstrate certain truths without relying simply on hyperbole or trust in and “expert’s” opinion. The only downside, of course, is tasting the bad stuff in general, and needing to find room for it in an already crowded tasting slate.

After allowing time for fallout from the nasty little revelations, including some energetic discussion of the large houses’ reliance on sulfur for stability and high levels of dosage for attainment of “house style,” Mr. Pike closed out the regular portion of class by pouring two more wines from important stylistic genres. We tasted Chartogne-Taillet’s Rosé NV, a 50/50 blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay made pink by a 19% addition still Pinot Noir base wine from the 1999 vintage. A classic, understated example of the dried, wild red fruit combined with subtle nuttiness that often results in blended rosé Champagnes.

Rounding out the planned selections for the evening was Jean Milan’s “Cuvée Tendresse,” a non-vintage Sec bottling, 100% Grand Cru Chardonnay grown in Oger. Apparently, it’s produced from the exact same base as used for Milan’s “Cuvée Spéciale” but with the addition of a 24 gram dosage. I would love to have tried it with a simple pâté de foie gras spread on fresh brioche. A sharp-eyed member of the class noticed that this was a NM (Négociant-Manipulant) bottling, the only one of the evening from the Skurnik/Theise portfolio. It was perfectly sound proof, and a good point of discussion, that not all NM Champagne is inherently inferior (just as not all RM Champagne is automatically superior). Many small producers, like Milan and Diebolt-Vallois for instance, have moved to Négociant licenses to allow themselves the flexibility to buy in small quantities of fruit from family members or conscientious neighboring farmers. Given the near impossibility of buying or affording new land in Champagne, it’s a reality driven by economic necessity which is only likely to grow in prevalence in the coming years.

Class would normally have ended at this point. We’d already tasted ten wines, a good two or three more than in the usual Tria seminar. However, Kevin had some leftovers from his afternoon trade tasting and volunteered to share them with the group. It gave us the opportunity to move into another category we’d yet to visit: vintage Champagne. Here’s a quick round-up:

Pierre Peters “Cuvée Spéciale” Brut 1999
Fruit from a single plot called “Chétillon” in Le Mesnil-sur-Oger. Slightly reductive aromatically but delicious in the mouth. Lots of apple cider nuance.

Aubry “La Nombre d’Or Sablé” Blanc des Blancs 2003
A blend including some of the Champenoise rarities cultivated by Aubry: 40% Chardonnay, 30% Arbanne and 30% Petit Meslier, with a miniscule two gram dosage, again using MCR rather than cane sugar. To add to the wacky wine factor, this is also in bottle at a lower pressure than normal, about four atmospheres rather than the usual six, a style Aubry refers to as “Sablé.” Wild aromas of funk, cheese and forest floor goodness. Weird, compelling and very much alive.

Pehu-Simonet “Cuvée Junior” Millésime Brut 2002
A 50/50 Chardonnay/Pinot Noir blend, with the Pinot Noir vinified in wood. All Grand Cru fruit; intensely powerful, loaded with savory minerality.

Marc Hébrart “Spécial Club” Brut 2002
I enjoyed the pleasure of meeting Jean-Paul Hébrart during a visit with Diebolt-Vallois – he’s married to Jacques Diebolt’s daughter, Isabelle – in February 2004 so it was a point of personal interest to get to taste this. It didn’t disappoint. A 60% Pinot Noir, 40% Chardonnay blend showing tons of lime pith and red cherry skin character. Loads of sex appeal and simply delicious. Kevin considers 2002 the finest all around vintage in Champagne since 1996. This would make a great choice for the cellar.


Some of the seminar's dead soldiers. Note the squat bottle at the right; that's the signature bottle of the Spécial Club.
If you’ve carried on to this point, you’ll share the sense of how intense and almost exhausting this tasting was. It was a challenge trying to keep on top of what was what, tasting through a total of 14 wines in about 90 minutes while participating in a full-on presentation, along with Q&A, about the ins and outs of the Champagne industry. Aside from the fun of the blind tasting portion – usually not my favorite thing but quite illuminating in this scenario – standouts for me included the Goutorbe which started the evening, Hébrart’s “Spécial Club” as well as the “Nombre d’Or” from Aubry. It was quite the bubble infused evening.

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Additional references:

• The 2007 Terry Theise Estate Selections Champagne catalog.
  
• A wonderful piece on the Spécial Club from Peter Liem at Besotted Ramblings and Other Drivel.

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