Isn’t this what - for example - Dom Pérignon do with their wines? They don’t bother much about protecting the wine from oxygen prior to fermentation - even letting the must oxidize quite a bit - but after the fermentation has begun, the wine is very aggressively protected from oxygen? So the end result is a very clean and reductively made wine, but the initial must oxidation helps the wine a lot to handle all that prolonged aging.
Thank you Otto.
Presuming you’re right, we can add this entirely separate layer — that I didn’t even know about until you two brought it up — to the list of layers I mentioned earlier that can add up to a cuvée’s flavor profile. I think I also failed to mention the terroir (other than vintage) because, unless it’s a designated cru cuvée, we don’t even know what the location blend is in many bottles so it’s hard to separate out.
Beyond the immediate benefit of this thread to those of us who think we don’t like oxidative styles (and apparently could be wrong depending on which oxidative phase we’re talking about), I think an exercise like this as to each of those different layers would benefit most of us.
Even many Berserkers with the best intentions, experienced Champagne drinkers in many cases, are probably confused as to at least some of the layers and talking about different things using the same language, and unwittingly leading astray others and even themselves. (As a lawyer, dealing with the unavoidable imprecision of language is something I do a lot and so I’m attuned to the problem as most lawyers probably are.) Establishing baselines for each contributing flavor profile would help all of us understand each other better.
(Of course the disgorgement-mishandling issue that Brad brings up throws a bit of a wrench into the exercise but it is what it is.)
I think in some ways you need to classify/describe (as Guillermo says above) exactly what you’re looking for in terms of “reductive”. For instance I get a great gunpowder note in a lot of Comtes and Dom Ruinairt that I love and I associate with reductive. That’s something I seek out, it’s a steel with great depth. OTOH I hate granny smith and bright lemony citrus as the most forward part of a champagne and some would associate that with reductive, whereas I just find it simple and shite.
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Certainly the gunpowder/smoky/steely notes are good. But I’m actually also good with lemony/citrus. I don’t think they’re incompatible, are they?
I do agree that the Granny Smith apple doesn’t seem to add much positive.
I’ll note that the reason I avoided stating specific tasting notes (defining what I’m looking for) in the OP and just said ‘reductive’ is that I didn’t want to fall into the same trap of misusing language without understanding the baseline and thus confusing the issue further. I’d rather be wrong about my stated preferences (after buying a bunch of well-defined reductive Champagne listed here) and still leave behind a useful well-defined thread for Berserkers that is about reductive Champagne and not about Guillermo’s personal taste (I always find that those sorts of threads stray into lists of producers of the “maybe try this to sharpen your palate or broaden your horizons” kind which may be helpful to the OP but not so much to others). I can always make threads about the other techniques/profiles until I find the perfect Champagne for me (and probably will, little by little).
I do also appreciate tasting notes on cuvées that we know are, in fact, reductive, like your Dom Ruinart example, even if we define cuvées like DP as reductive despite the oxidative musts process that Brad and Otto laid out. That’s useful for everyone.
These are two that come to mind, Guillermo…glad Brad added his POV.
Adding Vilmart to the list, alongside these two, I have opened probably close to 50 bottles this year for these 3 producers. I’ve yet to recall anything oxidative in these, and for me are good options for the alternate style you are seeking.
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This is pretty much a list of my favorite producers. I would add Chartogne Taillet, Mousse Fils, and Jose Michel to the list, though they may not exactly fit the definitions given above. I guess this means I don’t like oxidative Champagne.
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Absolutely. Their entire line up is amazing and I will argue to my grave that Clos des Goisses is both the best vineyard and best bottle of wine in all of Champagne.
Thanks for adding these Troy. I’m curious, why do you say they might not exactly fit?
I’m trying to pick up a bit of everything Brad and others mentioned (added an A Margaine to the list I posted earlier) (still looking for good deals on Pierre Peters, Ruinart and Billecart-Salmon), and report back. And I encourage everyone to do so to. It keeps the thread alive.
Piper-Heidsieck is my dad’s favorite, even if it doesn’t get a lot of love in some circles. It even got served at my sister’s wedding 16-ish years ago. The NV not the Rare. That wasn’t in the budget!
I’m still not sure I get how Veuve Clicquot fits into the list but Brad certainly knows more than I do.
Looking for some other stuff this weekend, I ran into an old OpEd on GuildSomm that will likely be at least somewhat controversial here:
FROM THE OP ED:
Here’s where things get tricky. I’m not going to throw around names here, but I do have a bone to pick with my fellow sommeliers. The Champagne bogeyman for me is not the large production wines that fill grocery store shelves. These wines serve a purpose and some of them are better than you think. So what are the ugly ducklings that make me misanthropically sneer? Unfortunately, the wines that dominate the lists of our hippest joints. I’m sorry, but I just don’t want to spend over $100 on obnoxiously dry bubbly that smells like apple cider and glue. Oxidation is a cheap trick; great Champagne can only be made through years of autolysis. And for god’s sake, if you’re going to use oak, take a lesson from Gratien and Krug, very few can do this well. Sure, there are some decent ones, but don’t even get me started about non-dosage…
It doesn’t strike me as a piece that has aged very well, as the best growers continue to refine their craft, and extreme vintage conditions throw into ever heightened relief the determinative importance of good farming in the production of great wine. The market seems to have taken this onboard: the just released 2008 Selosse is trading for higher prices than any of this year’s (or, for that matter, last year’s) grande marque releases.
Mostly because there are some cuvees by these producers that might fall into the more oxidative category, though their base NVs and many of their other wines I would say are definitely on the “fresh” end of the spectrum. Jose Michel’s Cuvée du Pére Houdart is one that comes to mind as being more oxidative.
My wife and I love Veuve. It gets a lot of hate because it is so ubiquitous and therefore an easy target, but the truth is that VC makes great wines IMHO.
That blog post made a lot of waves when it came out a few years back. I remember reading it and immediately going out and grabbing a bottle of Charles Heidsieck’s Brut NV to see if I agreed with his assessment. Needless to say, I did and it’s now one of my favorite NVs.
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I think it’s a little of both William.
You probably do know better than anyone that, as you say, the growers are improving all the time (surely not all but many). Your reviews of Egly-Ouriet and Pierre Peters certainly point in that direction. But your own reviews on Roederer and Billecart-Salmon stress how much they are improving too. I take to heart what you write, so I may be paraphrasing too roughly here, but you’ve harped on the great work that Roederer is doing in the fields and on the improved buying buying at Billecart-Salmon and Lanson, along with the plans at Billecart-Salmon to revamp their farming practices. So it may be more a matter of improvement across the board among all sorts of producers, big and small, while others still use the “cheap tricks” that the OpEd was complaining about. (For example, even if it isn’t on point, I think earlier in this thread, Brad cautioned against buying bottlings without SO2 in the US because they don’t travel well.) What do you think?
By the way, now that you’re here, and not to put more on your plate, but please visit Marie Courtin. The world needs your take.
The expression of Heidsieck Brut NV in that period was a bit of an anomaly. It saw very long aging sur lattes before disgorgment, as much as eight years. But that was mainly because it didn’t sell very well. Now it’s back to their target or around three years, though still with a very high proportion of reserve wines.
To me, the article might have made more sense had it been written in 2010 than in 2015. Very few growers are cited by name, and there are no concrete examples of wines that Greg (I assume he’s the author?) doesn’t like to agree or disagree with. The whole argument is ex cathedra, an assertion about what constitutes “the best” in Champagne without any argumentation, only assertion. I find it hard to imagine that anyone who tasted extensively in Champagne in 2015 could have come to such conclusions.
As for improvement across the board, certainly, there’s plenty of that (btw, remind me where I wrote about Billecart’s viticultural improvements? They are indeed evolving, and I believe have stopped using herbicides, but I don’t think I wrote about that yet)! And indeed, personally, I find the bifurcation between marques and growers rather unhelpful: the distinction between good and bad farmers, irrespective of size and business model, is more useful. But, that bifurcation is the premise of the opinion piece, and on its own terms, as I have already contended, I think it clearly hasn’t aged well.
As for Marie Courtin, I’m overdue a feature on the Aube. I’d planned it for this year, but then the harvest in Burgundy was so late that I got caught up reviewing 2020s and didn’t have time to go (my French visa application has also been a touch delayed). But, the project isn’t forgotten: I’m going to try to spend a week in Troyes and make lots of visits, because it really merits that sort of coverage at least every few years, and I am acutely aware that growers down south are getting a bit shortchanged in terms of coverage as it stands.
That would be a cheeky thread - houses we wish William would cover! 
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Do you know those extra paragraphs in smaller font that sometimes get appended to some Parker reviews? Well all your Billecart-Salmon tasting notes from August 30, 2019 (Issue 244) have the following addendum:
Billecart-Salmon is discreetly but significantly evolving. Since 2010, a new cellar has housed some 400 barrels for vinification and élevage, and since 2018, another cellar is home to oak foudres retaining some 80,000 liters of reserve wine. Meanwhile, Billecart’s wines are spending longer and longer sur lattes, and fruit sourcing is changing—with more grand cru fruit replacing premier cru fruit—while volumes remain the same. > Based on the trials underway in their emblematic Clos Saint-Hilaire, the next frontier will be the vineyards. > This visit and tasting with Mathieu Roland-Billecart and chef des caves Florent Nys underscored the impact of these quiet but important changes, and it’s clear that this is a house that’s going from strength to strength. I’ll be reporting on Billecart-Salmon in greater depth in the future, but for now, all these recent releases come warmly recommended.
Yes, it’s a minor line but it conveys the message to those of us paying attention. By the way, I’m really a big fan of those contextualizing paragraphs. Among reviewers I read regularly, only Mosel Fine Wines and Gilman also do it regularly, but their reviewing capacity is much more limited compared to WA.The context really helps to set the stage for the tasting note.
Understood. I think the argument they’re making might have been better put along the lines of tried-and-true is still a thing in Champagne and grower doesn’t necessarily mean better, though it can. But I’m very tolerant of provocative writing and I haven’t tasted enough Champagne to argue the point one way or the other. I just posted it because of the comment on oxidative process. I didn’t mean to appear to endorse it.
That’s great! Beyond the benefit to them, I think all consumers benefit from more regularly tasted/rated Champagne producers to at least provide some elasticity to the prices of the big houses.
I have a friend who says the most powerful word in the English language is: ASK. He’s probably right.
Rolland Champion blanc de blanc tasted super fresh to me. I don’t taste oxidized. Honestly, Argyle rose is also very vibrant tasting and probably has to do with that Pinot Munier … the standard brut is pretty bad.
Stay away from Boizel Grand Vintage 2007. I couldn’t tell if it was the oak or oxidation that was coming through if you like a cleaner champagne. It wasn’t bad, but tasted like a loaf of almond bread.
There is little worse for me than marzipan notes in Champagne.
Do you like Ritter Sport biscuits? If you like dry rose’s maybe Scaccia d’avoli rose spumante brut rosé might be a good match for you.