Sorry if this is a stupid question…but can we get a general list together of some of the most well known and popular producers in Champagne that USE malolactic fermentation, and those that DO NOT use malo?
Thanks! 
Just off the top of my head (and tried to confirm with Google):
Cédric Bouchard - malo
Bérêche - no malo
Ulysse Collin - malo
Vilmart - no malo
Eric Rodez - partial malo I believe?
Egly-Ouriet - no malo
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Lanson used to be known for their non-MLF style, but I’ve understood that they’ve now shifted their style towards partial malo.
Cristal is partial MLF, no MLF for the large part. I don’t know if Louis Roederer is no malo or partial malo in genera.
Pierre Gimonnet - malo
Jerome Prevost - malo
Dhondt-Grellet - malo
Suenen - malo
Piollot - malo
Fleury - malo
Francis Boulard - malo
Perseval Farge - malo / partial malo
Barrat-Masson - partial malo
Philipponnat - no malo / partial malo
Benoit Dehu - no malo
Vincent Charlot - no malo
Huré Frères - no malo
Janisson Baradon - no malo
Charlot-Tanneux - no malo
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Just as an aside, it’s interesting to consider the question of malolactic in Champagne from the perspective of aromas as well as of perceptible acidity. If some of the high-malic musts of yesteryear had actually completed their malolactic fermentation, the resulting wines could easily have ended up rather “cheesy”. There are some 2008 and 2013 white Burgundies that are too overtly lactic in profile for my taste. As malic acid levels in the fruit at harvest trend lower in recent years, this is much less of a potential issue.
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A great point, William.
Can’t remember having any cheesy Champagnes, but I can’t even count how many wines have tasted of yogurt or sour milk due to MLF. I suppose these qualities tend to disappear with age, since most of these lactic Champagnes tend to be young; I’ve noticed the more age a bubbly has, the less likely I’m going to pick up this yogurt note.
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I’ve never thought of this issue in Champagne before, but now that I do, of course I should have thought of it.
What is the key decision for the winemaker here? Obviously what resulting wine you want to make, but does it depend at all on the ripeness or acid of the still wine you had that year (e.g. the grapes were less ripe and more acidic that usual this year, we should do malo), or other considerations?
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Some producers might do it according to the vintage conditions, but with many wineries malo is more a house style kind of thing. For example Lanson’s no malo at all vs. Bollinger’s full MLF always. If you want to block MLF, you need to use more sulfites to keep the LAB at bay. By letting the wine go through MLF you’re making it microbiologically more stable (well apart from raising pH, but in Champagne that really isn’t an issue) so you can use less SO2.
With smaller producers it’s more of a laissez-faire thing; they let MLF come if it comes, but don’t stress out if it doesn’t come.
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What about my Brioche?
Is that malo driven?
I think that’s mostly Maillard-like reactions between amino acids released during autolysis and sugar added in the liqueur d’expedition (which also likely includes, or doesn’t include, substances that catalyze these reactions - another possible factor in maintaining a “house style”).
With the caveat that it is always hard to “parse” the aromas of a wine and attribute them to a particular winemaking practice.
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We need more Mailards!
The Maillard reaction is a chemical reaction between amino acids and reducing sugars that gives browned food its distinctive flavor. Seared steaks, fried dumplings, cookies and other kinds of biscuits, breads, toasted marshmallows, and many other foods undergo this reaction
Hi Chris,
Otto did a great job explaining various decisions for and against Malo. I’d also chime in that it can depend on how acidic the grapes may be when they come in. A producer can use Malo to cut down on perceptible acidity to make the wine more generally pleasing or because that’s the resulting wine they want. Malo can also fill in the body of a wine if a rounder style is more what they are aiming for (this can also happen somewhat by using long Lees aging).
This is definitely not a simple question and there is no right answer. For a long time, it really was a combination of a black or white producer’s stylistic preference and grapes coming in with high malic acid content. We are now starting to see changes where producers tend towards malo or no-malo, but practice both - more tools/ingredients in the kitchen to play with. Work in the vineyards and better timed picking is leading to more ripeness and lower malic acid levels in the picked grapes; in a way, you can say that a degree of malolactic is happening naturally in the vines (not exactly the same, but you can get the idea).
If I had to choose, I would tend to favor allowing the grapes to get riper and naturally have a lower malic content so that malolactic can be a choice and not feel like a necessity. This being said, that doesn’t suit the style of many producers. I also think you need to look at each plot in every vintage differently. A year like 2008 is probably going to need malolactic in some spots; a year like 2012 may not. Dosage, fermentation/aging vessels, still wine aging on lees (what kind), sulfur regime, reserve wines in a blend, cuvee, taille, etc… all come in to play too. Some of the worst wines I recall tasting were 2008 Chardonnays aged in new oak without malolactic and no dosage.
Anymore to add to the list?
Salon - no malo
Delamotte - malo
DP I would think malo?
Selosse?
Selosse is both. Anselme doesn’t encourage MLF, but if it happens, that’s perfectly fine. I think the wines are no-malo for the most part with a small portion of wines in the blend that have gone through MLF.
Getting an absolute list together is tough because there are always exceptions. In a lot of cases, the best you can do is generalize. Salon almost never does malo, but they have in the past. A lot of producers who are non-malo will occasionally have some malo wines either due to natural occurrence or a specific choice. Same goes for producers who usually favor malo; they sometimes experiment with some non-malo wines. Most (not all) larger producers also favor malolactic for stability reasons. It removes another variable from the equation of things that could go wrong. That being said, heavy handed malolactic fermentation can be quite gross. Luckily, most of the world doesn’t see the Champagnes that greatly exhibit this flaw. The most well known example of ‘too much malo’ I can think of is the case of Mumm between 1982 and the early 1990s. The wines from this era were very often not good and the overuse of malolactic (not sure for what reason) was a leading reason IMO.
Yes, have this experience more with wine than with Champagne, and, fwiw, especially Chablis, and, in my experience, especially (older) Fevre.
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This, 100% this. All the wines I’ve listed here are generalizations. Even a strictly no-malo producer can have a wine with MLF every now and then and vice versa.
The most well known example of ‘too much malo’ I can think of is the case of Mumm between 1982 and the early 1990s. The wines from this era were very often not good and the overuse of malolactic (not sure for what reason) was a leading reason IMO.
Could you elaborate what you mean by overuse of malolactic? After all many small producers do 100% MLF on their wines, how can you do more than that? Or whether they should’ve used less MLF back then if the musts were higher in malic acid? Or is there something else going on?
Otto,
I was referring to the amount of malo (should you choose to do it) that needs to be done on under ripe grapes. A lot of growers still pick way too soon today, but with global warming and many now paying much more attention to detail, it isn’t as bad as it once was. Even just 10-15 years ago, a lot more folks could care less about limiting yield or achieving ripeness, they just wanted to pick on the first day they were allowed and get their money. Pick a bunch of green, high acid, yet dilute grapes, chapitalize like crazy, and then do a heck of a malolactic job to get rid of the super high malic acid content. As for my reference to Mumm, I don’t know if anyone really knows all that went wrong in the 1982-1994 time period. To me, the wines of this period often showed some degree of spoiled milk, sauerkraut, and rancid coleslaw aromas/flavors. I and many others see this as a sign of heavy or too much malolactic, but it could have been other things too.
Great, thanks for the clarification!
Having not tasted Mumm wines back then, it’s hard to comment on the subject. However, that sounds very plausible.
As I’ve said earlier, I tend to pick up unintegrated MLF characteristics in wines as notes of natural yogurt or soured milk, which sounds quite close to your spoiled milk. However, those sauerkraut / rancid coleslaw notes - do they include notes of greenness? Because I’ve noticed that especially in 2011 some grower Champagnes showed quite a bit of that green/lactic kind of character, which always has felt a combination of yogurt, pickle relish (without the vinegary component) and green pea shoots. Wines exhibiting these qualities have always been easy to pick up as 2011 Champagne when tasting blind. I’ve been wondering if that is a combination of unripe grapes and MLF or if it’s something resulting from less-than-optimal quality grapes, since in the cool, wet 2011 vintage many producers had issues with fungal infections along problems with getting the grapes ripe enough.
To compliment the list above:
Lanson - no malo in the past, but reconsidering to use malo in present.
Any cuvée of Gosset - no malo
any cuvee of Louis Roederer - partial malo
Krug - spontaneous malo. They don’t restrict it nor they encourage it.
Legras & Haas - always full malo and immediately racked once it’s done.
I would also like to quote Jérôme Legras on using malo:
“zero malo and poorly managed malo are ‘terroir erasers’. The former has strong taste, the latter adds weird creamy milky notes.”