I view the Champagne region as one where there is a finite amount of the best land and when farmed right, this best land really can shine. It can expand or contract all it wants, but this is not likely to have any effect on the best of the best. Of course, you can overachieve and grow great grapes and make great wine from lesser land, but there are a number of spots (normally in Grand Cru and top Premier Cru) where you cannot deny that when farmed right, harvested appropriately, and handled properly in the winery, the potential is the best in the region. For the top producers who have increased production over the last 30-40 years, it is usually because they increased their land holdings or land contracts in top locations. Take a look at Lanson and Pommery - both used to have top vineyards; all of that is now LVMH and it enabled LVMH to increase quality production by at least 6M bottles across their brands. The best sites went to Dom Perignon and allowed Dom Perignon to add a couple million bottles to their production. What we are seeing more and more in Champagne is a consolidation of the best land amongst the top large and small producers. The large guys may be buying in 10ha chunks while the small guys are buying 0.1ha at a time, but the best are always trying to find a way to increase their holdings of top quality vineyards.
Simply put, if you own or have access to good land, good farming, time your harvest appropriately, and don’t screw things up in the winery, you can make millions and millions of top quality bottles.
Thank you for your feedback and understood. You have referenced best case scenarios, i.e. buying more land, which is certainly the reason some Producers have not increased production as they have not purchased, or have had the opportunity to purchase, significantly more land. On the other hand, there are certainly other Producers who have increased production in a greater proportion than any additional vineyard land acquired, i.e. buy grapes, must, wine instead of owning. The latter scenario is more specifically my inquiry. And if sales are sluggish now, I guess this creates opportunities for larger players like LVMH to buy more land from those vineyard owners or Grower Producers who are not able weather difficult sales years.
Charles Heidsieck would be my choice too. Love the NV brut and rosè. The NV bdB released last year or 2018 not so much. Sad to hear the % of reserve wine averaging 10 years is starting to dwindle. Used to be such a complex champagne at that price tier.
A friend, who I would regard as one of the most experienced champagne collectors in the UK, refers to vilmart cdc as the poor man’s krug fwiw. His definition of poor man is clearly different from most people’s but I can see where he’s coming from,
I don’t find any producer similar to Krug, including Charles Heidsieck (although the NV I’ve had from them were disgorged in the last few years) or Vilmart.
I would say the same for a lot of champagnes though, including Taittinger CDC, Cristal, and Clos de Goisses. Houses often have specific recognizable styles for certain wines.
Brad;
I don’t care about the whole Krug comparison but I would like to ask you this; if the price of the CH BR that includes the reserves from 8 years is ~$75 and the price of the more recently disgorged rendition from only three years is ~$40, which would you buy?
Are you asking about second fermentation aging (8 years vs. 3 years) or reserves in the blend (8 years worth of reserves vs. 3 years worth of reserves)?
I just want to make sure I understand the question. With Charles Heidsieck, the big change has been the time aging on the lees during the second fermentation process. The reserve wine program has essentially stayed the same although it is now changing and the reserves are slightly increasing and the overall blending goal is also changing. This is being done to try and keep the wine profile of the less aged wine to be more similar to the longer aged version that was on the market for a while.
Now you are just making me feel more ignorant. I am going to PM you so as to avoid displaying my ignorance in public. Though everyone already knows. I am dumb.
I’m a fan of Heidsieck and think it’s good stuff for the price and has been for a long time. I would argue that extended tirage and use of reserve wines does not always translate to a “massive difference in quality in the bottle” and that folks expecting a young, crisp NV and getting a high-dosage, extremely rich and deep golden NV may be getting something they neither wanted nor expected. Heidsieck has long been on one end of the stylistic spectrum, though most often absolutely delicious in my opinion (I popped a 1985 Champagne Charlie when I proposed to my wife 13 years ago).
I think some recent vintages of Bollinger GA seemed like attempts to capture pre 164eme Krug glory. A richer style with more oxidative notes and a richer golden color. Only in my opinion those fell rather flat, as Krug’s rich yeasty wonder is much less oxidative.