Bubbly for the holidays: Cava or Champagne?

Just in time for the holidays, Kobrand Corporation sent me a shipment of sparkling wines that I recently shared with some friends and family.

One of them was a bottle of Champagne Taittinger Brut La Française. Founded in 1734 by Pierre Taittinger, the Taittinger Champagne house owns approximately 752 acres of vines, including vineyards in the renowned Côte des Blancs and Montagne de Reims. It is one of the three most extensive wine estates in Champagne and relies primarily on its own grapes for its Champagne production. Pierre Taittinger was a visionary well ahead of his time. He foresaw that the market would turn away from heavily dosed, sweet champagnes in favor of natural, elegant wines and thus defined the Taitinger style to be centered on the concepts of lightness and naturalness.

The cuvée La Française contains approximatively 40% Chardonnay, over twice the percentage of Chardonnay used in the standard cuvées of most Champagne houses, the rest being Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. Chardonnay contributes elegance, finesse, and crispness to the blend. Pinot Noir brings body, structure, and vinosity while Pinot Meunier adds fruitiness and roundness. The wine showed a bright golden color and fine bubbles rising from the bottom of the glass. On the palate, it was fresh and lively with toasty, yeasty aromas and notes of apple compote on the finish.

The other sparkling wine was a bottle of Poema Cava Brut. Cava is a Spanish wine produced mainly in the Penedès region in Catalonia, southwest of Barcelona. Under Spanish D.O. laws, Cava must be made using the Traditional Method with second fermentation in the bottle, and using a selection of grapes that includes Macabeo, Parellada, Xarel·lo, Chardonnay, Pinot noir, and Subirat.

The Poema Cava Brut is a traditional blend of 40% Macabeo,40% Xarel-lo and 20% Parellada grapes grown in the Penedès region. Each grape variety is harvested separately. Primary fermentation takes place in stainless steel tanks at 16-18ºC. The three varietals are then blended, the triage (yeast and sugar) is added and secondary fermentation begins in the same bottle at a temperature of 13-15ºC.

Low in alcohol (11.5%), the wine had a pale yellow color, aromas of peach and apricots and was light and crisp on the palate. My friends preferred the toasty, yeasty flavors of the Champagne but my father-in-low, who enjoys going to Spain on vacation, really liked the fruity character of the Cava.

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An extra fridge on the deck for New Year's Eve

The New Year's Eve party at the ski cabin was great, the guests cheerful, and the drinks perfectly cold.

The day before, we had shoveled more than a foot of accumulated snow off our deck, but decided to leave a large block next to the kitchen door. This was good thinking. Our refrigerator was full with enough food to feed an army and there was no room for any additional bottles that needed to be chilled.

That's how the block of snow on the deck became home to three bottles of Champagne, including the outstanding Mumm Grand Cru, three bottles of Sauternes to accompany the terrine of foie gras — we actually tasted the 2004 Château Rayne Vigneau and the 2005 Château Coutet, the latter particularly rich and aromatic — and last but not least, three bottles of sparkling Martinelli for the younger crowd.


Our fridge on the deck

There was also a nice layer of snow for everybody to go barefoot in the snow at midnight for our traditional New Year photo.

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The Widow Clicquot: it's delicious but you can read it too!

“Because of her willingness to take risks without fanfare, the Widow Clicquot became one of the most famous women of her area. For decade after decade, her name was heard on the lips of soldiers, princes, and poets as far away as Russia. Before long, tourists came looking for a glimpse of the woman whom the writer Prosper Mérimée once called the uncrowned queen of Reims. In the Champagne, she was known simply as La Grande Dame—The Great Lady.”
The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It

In 1798, Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin, the daughter of a prosperous Reims merchant marries François Clicquot, a textile merchant with a small wine business. But in 1805, François dies and Barbe-Nicole, now a widow, chooses to defy convention and take the reins of the fledgling wine business. After multiple political and financial reversals, she becomes one of the first great businesswomen and one of the richest women of her time.

This is a fascinating story about an audacious and intelligent woman, a bold risk taker, a daring and determined entrepreneur, the first woman in history to run an international commercial empire.






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Champagne Tasting

In December, we had our traditional annual Champagne tasting. Tasting several Champagnes at the same time is a great way to learn and compare these wines that can have so many distinctive flavors. During the evening, we tasted seven different wines, including some made exclusively from Chardonnay, some exclusively from one single harvest, some exclusively from Premier/Grand Cru vineyards, the last one being a Champagne Rosé.

Champagne is a sparkling wine from the Champagne region produced with a carbonation method called méthode champenoise or méthode traditionnelle: after primary fermentation and bottling, a second fermentation is induced by adding yeast and sugar in the bottle. The bottle is then sealed and the wine continues to age for a minimum of 1.5 years to add complex toasty and yeasty flavors. When the aging process is complete, the dead yeast cells are removed and the bottle is corked.

Champagne is typically a blend of the three official varietals of Champagne: Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay. They are generally assembled from different vineyards and harvests. Still red wine from Champagne can be added to produce a Champagne rosé. Blanc de Noirs is a white sparkling wine produced entirely from black grapes. Conversely, Blanc de Blancs is made only from Chardonnay grapes and mostly produced in the Côte des Blancs.



The wines we tasted:

• Champagne Zoémie de Sousa Brut Cuvée Merveille. Champagne de Sousa is a 5.5 hectare property located in the heart of the prestigious Côte des Blancs with some vineyards classified as Grands Crus. Planting is 40% Pinot Noir, 10% Pinot Meunier, and 50% Chardonnay. Erick de Sousa who has been managing the Domaine since 1986, is now part of the absolute elite of Champagne growers-producers and his production is now been sought out by many gourmet restaurants. My notes: aromatic nose, fruity, assertive bubbles, good acidity. Great for the aperitif.

• Champagne Philippe Gonet Brut Blanc de Blancs: Champagne Philippe Gonet is a family champagne house with 19 hectares of vineyards in the heart of the Cotes de Blancs that are farmed using sustainable agricultural methods. This cuvée is 100% Chardonnay from the 2004 and 2003 harvests. Half the blend is made of fruits sourced from Grand Cru vineyards. My notes: light color, sour apple aromas on the nose, fine bubbles, crisp acidity. I found this one more mono-dimensional than the other Champagnes.

• Champagne Franck Bonville Brut Prestige Blanc de Blancs: Champagne Franck Bonville is a family enterprise making Champagne from fruit grown in the Grand Cru villages of Avize and Oger. This wine is a blend of the 2002, 2000 and 1998 vintages, all sourced from old vines from the estate Grand Cru vineyards. My notes: lighltly colored, aromatic nose, rich complexity on the palate, mineral finish. This crowd pleaser was indeed the winner of the evening!

• Champagne Leclerc Briant Les Crayères: Champagne Leclerc Briant cultivates 30 hectares of vineyards between the Montagne de Reims and the Marne valley, using biodynamic farming methods. The maturing cellars are made of over 1 km of galleries dug in solid chalk 30 metres underground. This blend is 38% Pinot Noir, 37% Meunier and 25% Chardonnay sourced from a single vineyard called Les Crayères (The chalk mine), an exceptional terroir: vines have deep roots in that very shallow soil followed by a deep subsoil layer of chalk. My notes: our first bottle was unfortunately flat, the second one was much better. Light golden color, apple cider aromas on the nose, a toasty and winey palate, dominated by Pinot flavors.

• Champagne Laurent-Perrier Ultra Brut: when no sugar is added during the second fermentation in the bottle, the Champagne is labeled Ultra Brut. This cuvée is produced by Champagne Laurent-Perrier, the largest family-owned Champagne House. The blend is 55% Chardonnay, 45% Pinot Noir sourced from Grand cru vineyards, and exclusively coming from very ripe harvests, in this case, 1995. A rigorous selection ensures that only grapes with both high sugar levels and low acidity are used. My notes: forward fruits on the nose with mineral notes, very distintive palate with a lot of depth, long finish. One of my favorite wines of the evening.

• 2000 Champagne Louis Roederer Vintage Brut: when the harvest is exceptional, a Millesimé or Vintage wine is declared. A Vintage cuvée is made with fruits from a single harvest and has to mature for at least 3 years in bottle. This wine is produced by Champagne Louis Roederer, one of the largest remaining independent Champagne Houses, owned by the same family since its foundation in 1776. It is a blend of 67% Pinot Noir and 33% Chardonnay sourced almost exclusively from the Roederer estate Grand and Premier Cru vineyards. My notes: expressive fruity nose, good acidity, clean flavors on the finish, but I have to say, I was slightly disappointed by this wine.

• Champagne de Castellane Brut Rosé: Champagne de Castellane was founded in 1895 by Vicomte Florens De Castellane, member of one of the oldest noble families in France. This wine is a blend of three grapes dominated by Pinot Noir, 15% of which being still red wine. My notes: light salmon color, pleasant fruity nose, fresh and delicate palate, slightly bitter finish.

For our next tasting event, we'll be pairing cheese and wine. Soft, hard, blue, cow, goat, sheep cheese: which wines will work the best with all these cheeses? Stay tuned!

Previous wine club tastings:
•  Tasting the wines of South America
•  Tasting Summer Wines from around the Mediterranean Sea
•  Guess the wine tasting
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