Article: The era of grower Champagnes is over

[Jan_Janas]

Whenever I hear that something is “over” right when I first discover it I’m always skeptical. Grower Champagne might be an older phenomenon technically speaking, but in practical terms it seems to be still reaching its height, with many participants on this forum joining the circle just this year, me included. On a collective consciousness sort of level, grower is still penetrating the average consumer’s market; and an advantage that growers have on marquee houses is that their product is less tied to Champagne’s luxury image, and more to artisanal farming and winemaking. As such, drinking a grower on a Wednesday is easier to normalise, as opposed to drinking label Champagne that is more often gifted and reserved for special occasions.

Another word has to be said on the practice of using macro quantitative data to explain micro socio-cultural phenomena, such as a ‘movement’ we are speaking of, as many have already pointed out: the difference between the subset of exceptional growers, and the mass of unknown growers, is unquantifiable, and accounting the failure of the second as a means to derive a trend for the first doesn’t make sense. One would have to isolate the top 100 growers or so to maybe make a more sensible statement on the category, or, as William puts it bluntly, we are just talking about “some Champagne producers you have never heard of [,who] are going to disappear, continuing a long-term trend.”

That said, all this thread has done is remind me that I need to drink more grower Champagne, and go out to find more. It is one of the most dynamic and interesting categories in wine at the moment.

[Brad_Baker]

The problem is that it really shouldn’t be grower vs. house. Of course, people should drink whatever they want for whatever reason they have and search/explore to try new things, but you miss out on things if you limit what you go after. I have always felt it is good quality vs. poor quality with a few tangents for those who are after specific vineyard practices, size of estate, ‘sense’ of place, etc… You can get all of these things from producers of all types and sizes.

A number of producers that folks call ‘growers’ are now negociants in both the technical sense (business reasons) and in practice (they purchase grapes). It really should be small producers and large producers, folks who farm their grapes and folks that don’t, and folks that source grapes from quality farmers and those that don’t. Believe it or not, but Dom Perignon is very close to and sometimes a pure grower (estate owned vineyards) Champagne and it is made at over 5M bottles a year. Cristal and all Roederer Vintage wines would be a grower Champagne. Comtes is pretty much a grower Champagne. Clos des Goisses is a grower Champagne. So is Clos du Mesnil and Clos d’Ambonnay. Salon, which is much more revered, is not.

Producers of all sizes are making exciting wines right now. Some growers are disappearing and new ones appearing. There are new, quality focused negociants appearing too. A number of co-operatives are also quite exciting. Producers of all types and sizes are introducing new wines and improving wines that have been around for years. Champagne has never been better or more interesting than it is right now. There is nothing wrong with going down a specific path, but you should never close yourself off from a producer or wine. You never know what you might be missing… and blind tasting is extremely education in helping with label bias (which runs high in Champagne).

Most importantly, support Champagne, and regardless of what it is, buy a bottle or magnum or jeroboam and enjoy it.

[K_Tran1]

I have more miss than hit with grower champagnes for a few years in a row. I used the Taittinger La Francaise as benchmark and 75% did not even perform nearly as well, and almost all are more expensive.

[Frank_Murray_III]

Khong, which growers are you comparing to Taittinger La Francaise that are not measuring up?

[Nick_Christie]

I’m a little skeptical of the argument here. Taken very literally, it may be true, but the “growers” that are going to go under are not the producers that most people reading the article will be thinking of when they hear the phrase “grower Champagne”.

Strictly speaking, there have been grower-bottlers in Champagne for a very long time, and their numbers really multiplied in the 1930s when wine prices fell and the only way for owner to eek out a living on their very small holdings (average was around 2ha back then) was to bottle and market the product themselves, selling grapes having become insufficiently remunerative. There are many “growers” today whom we have never heard of, and who produce their wines, as Hervé Chiquet says in the article, according to the oenologist’s textbook: much of their production is sold to the domestic French market, either at the cellar door or in the supermarkets. The wines are often, frankly, not great (though if you are price conscious and simply looking for “bubbles” they may sometimes suffice I guess); and indeed it remains the case that the very worst wines in Champagne are produced by growers in this sense, rather than either Grandes Marques or cooperatives.

But when we talk about “grower Champagne”, we are in reality mostly talking about the sort of artisanal revolution in viticulture and winemaking that began in the 1970s with Selosse and which today has really coalesced into what can be called a movement. For the reasons given above, talking of a “grower revolution” is not necessarily the best way to describe this movement, even though its agents are indeed for the most part growers (and even though I have used the term in print myself).

The reality is that Tyson is probably correct if he is saying that there will be fewer poor to mediocre RMs (and RCs, too) that no one participating in this forum has ever heard of. And this is a trend that has been evident for over a decade. But I am very doubtful that any growers with even a modicum of a reputation for quality are about to go out of business.

Once again, this guy completely nails it. How does he keep effing nailing it? And so concisely? Ridiculous.

[K_Tran1]

Khong, which growers are you comparing to Taittinger La Francaise that are not measuring up?

Franck Bonville is one of the top of my head. There are too many who even remember these names?
Why don’t you try tasting them blind and see how they perform?

[Frank_Murray_III]

Taste what blind, Khong? Not sure I understand but actually in my wine group we taste nearly everything blind, as we did yesterday with the Bereche Campania Remensis and the Vilmart CdC.

I just find it interesting that you will compare producers to Taittinger, and yet you can’t remember them in support of your point. I’m not trying to rattle you up here, but simply speak in behalf of a segment off Champagne that I am passionate about, whose made some of the best wines I have tasted from anywhere in the world.

[David_Bu3ker]

Maybe he just likes the Taittinger, and so it sets a standard for him. It’s not a bad wine. It’s not very exciting, and I would gladly have 1 bottle of Pierre Peters versus 2 La Francaise, but that’s my preference.

[Frank_Murray_III]

David, it’s not for me to judge, and while I try not to, instead I am just trying to understand.

[Jay_Miller]

I have more miss than hit with grower champagnes for a few years in a row. I used the Taittinger La Francaise as benchmark and 75% did not even perform nearly as well, and almost all are more expensive.

I think there’s also an issue that stylistic differences can be more pronounced with some growers so it’s more likely that a given person might not like (or might love) a given producer’s line. I know that some friends of mine are head over heels in love with Laval who I find meh. On the other hand I am head over heels in love with Marguet which other friends of mine find meh.

It’s one reason I find (found? ) La Fete du Champagne so valuable as it offers the chance to taste a wide range of different producers and pinpoint where I’ll spend my money. Hopefully things will have opened up more by that time next year as I double very much it will be held this year.

[David_Bu3ker]

I have more miss than hit with grower champagnes for a few years in a row. I used the Taittinger La Francaise as benchmark and 75% did not even perform nearly as well, and almost all are more expensive.

I think there’s also an issue that stylistic differences can be more pronounced with some growers so it’s more likely that a given person might not like (or might love) a given producer’s line. I know that some friends of mine are head over heels in love with Laval who I find meh. On the other hand I am head over heels in love with Marguet which other friends of mine find meh.

It’s one reason I find (found? ) La Fete du Champagne so valuable as it offers the chance to taste a wide range of different producers and pinpoint where I’ll spend my money. Hopefully things will have opened up more by that time next year as I double very much it will be held this year.

Good to know that I am not the only hold out on Laval.

[Jayson_Cohen]

I have more miss than hit with grower champagnes for a few years in a row. I used the Taittinger La Francaise as benchmark and 75% did not even perform nearly as well, and almost all are more expensive.

I think there’s also an issue that stylistic differences can be more pronounced with some growers so it’s more likely that a given person might not like (or might love) a given producer’s line. I know that some friends of mine are head over heels in love with Laval who I find meh. On the other hand I am head over heels in love with Marguet which other friends of mine find meh.

It’s one reason I find (found? ) La Fete du Champagne so valuable as it offers the chance to taste a wide range of different producers and pinpoint where I’ll spend my money. Hopefully things will have opened up more by that time next year as I double very much it will be held this year.

Good to know that I am not the only hold out on Laval.

I am in Jay’s meh camp on both Marguet and Laval so far. Vouette too. And Suenen I’m on the fence. More than anywhere, I have found tastes in Champagne to be very personal and somewhat unpredictable among friends with whom my palate normally aligns strongly.

(I do like to keep an open mind when I like what a grower stands for in principle.)

[Jayson_Cohen]

The problem is that it really shouldn’t be grower vs. house. Of course, people should drink whatever they want for whatever reason they have and search/explore to try new things, but you miss out on things if you limit what you go after. I have always felt it is good quality vs. poor quality with a few tangents for those who are after specific vineyard practices, size of estate, ‘sense’ of place, etc… You can get all of these things from producers of all types and sizes.

A number of producers that folks call ‘growers’ are now negociants in both the technical sense (business reasons) and in practice (they purchase grapes). It really should be small producers and large producers, folks who farm their grapes and folks that don’t, and folks that source grapes from quality farmers and those that don’t. Believe it or not, but Dom Perignon is very close to and sometimes a pure grower (estate owned vineyards) Champagne and it is made at over 5M bottles a year. Cristal and all Roederer Vintage wines would be a grower Champagne. Comtes is pretty much a grower Champagne. Clos des Goisses is a grower Champagne. So is Clos du Mesnil and Clos d’Ambonnay. Salon, which is much more revered, is not.

Producers of all sizes are making exciting wines right now. Some growers are disappearing and new ones appearing. There are new, quality focused negociants appearing too. A number of co-operatives are also quite exciting. Producers of all types and sizes are introducing new wines and improving wines that have been around for years. Champagne has never been better or more interesting than it is right now. There is nothing wrong with going down a specific path, but you should never close yourself off from a producer or wine. You never know what you might be missing… and blind tasting is extremely education in helping with label bias (which runs high in Champagne).

Most importantly, support Champagne, and regardless of what it is, buy a bottle or magnum or jeroboam and enjoy it.

What Brad said.

[K_Tran1]

David, it’s not for me to judge, and while I try not to, instead I am just trying to understand.

I buy cases of Taittinger, I buy one or two bottles of the grower champagne. How do you expect me to remember the names?
How about this one, I just bought and tried recently, larmandier bernier longitude. This one is 50% more expensive than Taittinger, but to my palate, it is too thin, not nearly as complex, doesn’t give me much. Even at the same price point, it’s not nearly as good. If it’s 50% more expensive, the QPR is just not there.

[William_Kelley]

David, it’s not for me to judge, and while I try not to, instead I am just trying to understand.

I buy cases of Taittinger, I buy one or two bottles of the grower champagne. How do you expect me to remember the names?
How about this one, I just bought and tried recently, larmandier bernier longitude. This one is 50% more expensive than Taittinger, but to my palate, it is too thin, not nearly as complex, doesn’t give me much. Even at the same price point, it’s not nearly as good. If it’s 50% more expensive, the QPR is just not there.

That’s certainly surprising. For me, the Longitude is reliably quite a bit more concentrated than the La Française. In fact, I’d single it out as one of the best values in non-vintage grower Champagne, and along with Egly-Ouriet’s V.P. it’s one of my two “house” Champagnes. Of course, the dosage is more like 3 g/l vs the 9 or so g/l in La Française, but despite that I find the Longitude is more vinous and textural, with a fleshier core of fruit.

[DanielP]

I buy cases of Taittinger, I buy one or two bottles of the grower champagne. How do you expect me to remember the names?

But no one else is going to know what you drank

[Greg_K]

I think there’s also an issue that stylistic differences can be more pronounced with some growers so it’s more likely that a given person might not like (or might love) a given producer’s line. I know that some friends of mine are head over heels in love with Laval who I find meh. On the other hand I am head over heels in love with Marguet which other friends of mine find meh.

It’s one reason I find (found? ) La Fete du Champagne so valuable as it offers the chance to taste a wide range of different producers and pinpoint where I’ll spend my money. Hopefully things will have opened up more by that time next year as I double very much it will be held this year.

Good to know that I am not the only hold out on Laval.

I am in Jay’s meh camp on both Marguet and Laval so far. Vouette too. And Suenen I’m on the fence. More than anywhere, I have found tastes in Champagne to be very personal and somewhat unpredictable among friends with whom my palate normally aligns strongly.

(I do like to keep an open mind when I like what a grower stands for in principle.)

I think Vouette is really cuvée specific for me. I quite like the Blanc d’Argile, but am not a fan of the Fidele, for example.

[Sean_S_y_d_n_e_y]

My only quibble with a lot of grower wines is that they generally trend towards low-or-no-dosage and even as someone who really enjoys acidity I find a few examples a bit joyless and find myself wanting a bit more generosity and unctuousness to balance the sharp, linear character of the fruit. I’d be curious to learn which growers use a more classic dosage level (thank you, Vilmart!) and just generally hope that the pendulum swings back a little over the coming years.

[brigcampbell]

Epic quote of the year regarding FMIII tasting grower champagne. “Why don’t you try tasting them blind and see how they perform?”

I can’t stop laughing and people at work are beginning to stare. It’s uncomfortable.

[K_Tran1]

David, it’s not for me to judge, and while I try not to, instead I am just trying to understand.

I buy cases of Taittinger, I buy one or two bottles of the grower champagne. How do you expect me to remember the names?
How about this one, I just bought and tried recently, larmandier bernier longitude. This one is 50% more expensive than Taittinger, but to my palate, it is too thin, not nearly as complex, doesn’t give me much. Even at the same price point, it’s not nearly as good. If it’s 50% more expensive, the QPR is just not there.

That’s certainly surprising. For me, the Longitude is reliably quite a bit more concentrated than the La Française. In fact, I’d single it out as one of the best values in non-vintage grower Champagne, and along with Egly-Ouriet’s V.P. it’s one of my two “house” Champagnes. Of course, the dosage is more like 3 g/l vs the 9 or so g/l in La Française, but despite that I find the Longitude is more vinous and textural, with a fleshier core of fruit.

I think it’s the stylistic differences. I like champagne that has a little more weight, more brioche toast, yiesty. The Larmandier Bernier longtitude is too light, too refreshing style for me. It is not a bad champagne, I would buy again if the price is under 30. I just don’t think it is worth 50.