Champagne Archives

DOUBLE, DOUBLE TOIL AND BUBBLE

If the world is headed for a double-dip recession, champagne drinkers are either oblivious to the threat or partying like there is no tomorrow until all comes crashing down.

Trade body Comite interprofessionnel du vin de Champagne (CIVC) has reported that global champagne sales volumes jumped nearly 40 per cent in the first half of this year. The CIVC said this growth was on top of robust sales of the French specialty in the first quarter.

The industry group said 47.1 million bottles of champagne had been exported in the six-months, with shipments to European Union and non-EU countries increasing by 27.3 per cent and 60.6 per cent respectively.

A breakdown of the figures showing shipments to individual countries was not yet available, but experts said the stronger US dollar and British pound in relation to the euro had helped drive consumption of bubbly in those two key markets.

A CIVC spokesman said while it was premature to talk of a lasting recovery being under way, the champagne industry was clearly in much better shape than it was a year ago with destocking now at an end and replenishment of stocks begun.

Champagne sales around the world sank during the global financial crisis as consumers chose less conspicuous and pricey alcoholic drinks in which to drown their sorrows.

Moet Hennessy Australia, part of the French luxury goods group LVMH, said recently it was optimistic about local champagne sales during the spring racing carnival and the crucial Christmas trading period.

Its popular Moet & Chandon brand, the biggest-selling champagne brand in Australia, has been driving 10 per cent-plus sales growth in the business for the year to date.

Australians are among the top 10 drinkers of champagne in the world, with just under 3 million bottles emptied last year.

Brisbane Times

BEST WAY TO POUR CHAMPAGNE? “Down the Side”

There has been a long-standing disagreement over the best way to pour a glass of champagne…the evidence is now in as of August 11, 2010! Scientists in France have recently reported that pouring champagne in an angled, down-the-side way is best for preserving its taste and bubbles. Along with this report, came the first scientific evidence confirming the importance of chilling champagne before serving to enhance its taste.

Gérard Liger-Belair and his colleagues have noted in this report that tiny bubbles are the essence of fine champagnes and sparkling wines. Past studies indicate that the bubbles (which are formed during the release of large amounts of dissolved carbon dioxide gas) help transfer the taste, aroma, and mouth-feel of champagne. Scientists long have suspected that the act of pouring a glass of bubbly could have a big impact on gas levels in champagne and its quality. Until now, however, no scientific study had been done. The scientists studied carbon dioxide loss in champagne using two different pouring methods. One involved pouring champagne straight down the middle of a glass and the other involved pouring champagne down the side of an angled glass. They found that pouring champagne down the side preserved up to twice as much of the carbon dioxide in champagne than pouring down the middle. They believe that the angled method was gentler.

They also confirmed in their report that cooler champagne temperatures (ideally, 39 degrees Fahrenheit) help reduce carbon dioxide loss.

Though the findings may seem obvious, this is the first time they’ve been shown chemically. As for how to best drink champagne, the answer is still the same—bottoms up!

References:

Liger-Belair et al. On the Losses of Dissolved CO2 during Champagne Serving. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2010; 58 (15): 8768 DOI: 10.1021/jf101239w

American Chemical Society (2010, August 11). Best way to pour champagne? ‘Down the side’ wins first scientific test. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 28, 2010, from http://www.sciencedaily.com¬ /releases/2010/08/100811125945.htm

CHAMPAGNE PROCEEDS WITH CAUTION :: Shipments are up, but the industry sets limits on grape yields for the 2010 harvest

People looking for signs of economic recovery watch unemployment figures or housings sales or retail figures. In the wine industry, many look to Champagne sales. Demand is increasing for Champagne in the United States. Imports from the region nearly doubled in the first two months of 2010, compared with January and February 2009. The industry is still a long way from the boom times of just a few years ago, but there may be light at the end of the tunnel.

Nonetheless, Champagne producers are proceeding with caution when it comes to the bubbly supply. The Comité Interprofessionel du Vin de Champagne (CIVC), the industry’s regulatory body, set a maximum yield of 10,500 kilograms per hectare (4.7 tons per acre) for this year’s harvest. It’s a compromise between the region’s grapegrowers, some of whom bottle and sell Champagne themselves, and the merchant houses that purchase grapes for the bulk of their production. For growers, more grapes mean more money, while for producers, more grapes mean more wine to sell in an uncertain market when inventories in their cellars are already high.

“The growers wanted more, not only those who sell grapes but also those who produce and sell their own Champagne because they have done well so far and they do not have much reserves,” said Daniel Lorson, the CIVC’s director of communications. “On the contrary, the houses and the [cooperatives] wanted a lower level—below 10,000 kilograms per hectare—so the level that has been set is a compromise.” Last year the yields were limited to 9,700 kg/ha (4.33 tons/acre).

Despite the limit, the estimated crop level for the 2010 harvest is 14,000 kg/ha (6.2 tons/acre). That guarantees a complex scenario for the region come harvest time. Each producer is allowed to harvest grapes in excess of maximum yields and set aside the wine for use in future years, but the amount of reserves is currently limited to 8,000 kg/ha. Most big producers already have the maximum allowed stock of reserve wines or are close to the maximum, thanks to slower sales in the past three years.

So what happens to the surplus grapes? “The 10,500 kg/ha limit is based on the needs of the region as a whole,” said Sam Heitner, spokesperson for the Champagne Bureau, the representative of the CIVC in the United States. “The CIVC updates this limit every year based on the supply situation. Some years it has been higher and other years it has been lower.”

“As a decision on the amount allowed to go into the reserves will take place at a later date, we cannot provide the total harvest per hectare today. However, it is common practice in years with low harvest limits for the Champenoise to pick the best grapes out of each parcel to go toward the limit and the reserve wines and then leave the remaining grapes in the field to nurture the vines.”

The decision to limit the harvests both last year and now this year has stabilized grape prices. Stéphane Coquillette, a small grower in Chouilly, said he was pleased with this year’s increase over 2009 yields but, more important, the stability in the price of grapes.

Louis Roederer’s chef de cave, Jean-Baptiste Lecaillon, echoed Coquillette’s sentiment. “At Roederer, we think 10,500 or 11,000 kg/ha was the right decision, with a stable price for grapes, as our crop estimation in our vineyard is 11,500 kg/ha,” he said. “If everything goes well [with the weather], every grower should reach the maximum 8,000 kg/ha reserve qualitative individuelle at the end of harvest 2010.”

Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger, owner of Champagne Taittinger, said there were still a few details to work out regarding the CIVC’s decisions, but he did not elaborate. Taittinger was, however, pleased with the increase in demand for bubbly. “As far as Taittinger is concerned, shipments for the first six months of the year are very good all over the world,” he said. “I think that the quality of the wines, the identity of the brand and the efficiency of the distribution network are paying. The value of the dollar versus the euro is helping obviously.”

The strength of the dollar against the euro recently has certainly helped sales of Champagne in the U.S. Xavier Barlier, vice president of marketing and communication for Maisons Marques & Domaines, Roederer’s U.S. subsidiary, also cited this as a factor in his Champagne house’s recent success.

The CIVC’s Lorson, though optimistic, remains cautious. “At the moment we are enjoying growth. We do not know if it is a steady recovery,” he said. “The situation is better than a year ago, because the destocking is over in most of our export markets. But the consumers are still trading down, which is not good for those who had based their prosperity on premium and superpremium cuvées.”

There is still a long climb for Champagne to reach 2006’s peak of 23.2 million bottles shipped to the U.S. “Our industry is very much dependent on the global economic situation, today more than ever,” said Lorson.

Wine Spectator

CHAMPAGNE CHARLIE

Les Americains might still be teetotalers if it weren’t for Champagne Charlie, who filled flutes to the brim across the Atlantic rim when he visited the Etats-Unis. The Age of Innocence didn’t know what hit them when the fun-loving francophone Charles Heidsieck swaggered onto the haute New York City society scene with bottles of bubbly tucked under his arm.

The eponymously-named son of a champagne merchant, Charles was appalled to notice while on his grand tour of Nouvelle Angleterre et Nouvelle York that the swank fetes he attended from Back Bay to the Breakers to the Upper East Side were bereft of bubbly. Coming from a long family tradition of never-one-to-miss-an-opportunity (his father, after all, was famous for riding ahead of Napoleon with cases of champagne to sell for the famed victory parties) he immediately saw the potential for exporting his French family brew to the United States and considered it to be his life’s mission to inebriate the American bourgeois. And once he plied heirs and heiresses with their first “taste of the stars” they thought he’d hung the moon.

America loved Charlie. And Charlie loved champagne. Charles quickly found a sales agent to help him import champagne from his home near Reims to the nouveau monde. Parades and banquets were held in his honor with corks popping and pomp and circumstance following him wherever he went. The New York Times sang his praises, giving the type of publicity the PR agencies representing champagne houses today pray for. Almost overnight, Champagne Charlie was living the American Dream.

The Yankees didn’t have a monopoly on Heidsieck and despite the brewing tensions between the North and South, the libations introduced in Manhattan slipped their way south into the seaside mansions of Charleston, debutante balls in Savannah and cotillions in Memphis. A formal dinner wasn’t considered dinner in New Orleans without some champagne and in Atlanta plantations wouldn’t be caught dead without having bubbly on hand. Frankly, my dear, everyone who was anyone gave a damn about this nouveau import called champagne.

And while all’s well that ends well, Heidsieck’s road to success wasn’t simply smooth sailing. While America stayed enamored with the golden god Charlie introduced, he fell from good graces when he was accused of being a spy and subsequently imprisoned. In a life story that reminds one they should always choose their business partners wisely, Heidsick was betrayed by the agent whom he’d hired to roll out the bottle of bubbly to the American market.

Charles had imported heavily from France to America and more than half his family fortune was tied up overseas. His sales agent loved the success the importation of champagne had brought him, but he got greedy and felt he should be getting more recognition and funds from the sale of champagne than he was currently receiving. When the Civil War erupted it provided the perfect excuse to knock Charlie from his pedestal and to pad his own pockets. The agent twisted a law meant to restrict the movement of funds between the North and South to apply to the importation of products from abroad, leaving Heidsieck up the proverbial creek without a paddle and penniless. Charles’s only hope was that the Southerners had more morals than his New York sales agent.

Going South, Champagne Charlie prayed the Southern merchants who had received his champagne would be willing to pay him directly. And while their hearts might have been willing, their pocketbooks weren’t—the South was nearly bankrupt by the war and incapable of paying their debts. Even worse, Charles discovered that the routes back to the north were sealed and he had no choice but to return to La République with his tail between his legs. To facilitate his passage, the French Consul asked Heidsieck to deliver a diplomatic pouch on his behalf, and in a move that can only be described as kicking a dog when he’s down, the diplomatic pouch was seized by the Union. Heidsieck—a man beloved by America—was accused of spying for both the Confederacy and the French government. Tossed in the slammer, his pleas of innocence and ignorance of the pouch’s contents were ignored.

Fortunately for Charlie, he was a well-connected chap and word of his unfair imprisonment leaked. Before long President Abraham Lincoln and the French Emperor Napoleon III were embroiled in deep conversations over “The Heidsieck Incident”. While discussions over his release prevailed, Heidsieck’s health failed as he was denied his daily elixir of champagne. His family was nearly bankrupt by the incident and began selling plots of valuable land in the Champagne region to pay Heidsieck’s debts and upon his release from prison for his safe passage to France. And that might have been the end of the story, had it not been for an American missionary who approached Charles a few years later while he convalesced in France with a letter he’d been asked to hand-deliver across the pond.

The brother of Heidsieck’s former sales agent in New York was ashamed of his brother’s actions that had cheated Heidsieck out of his income and led indirectly to his imprisonment simply for being at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong message in his pocket. As a gift of reconciliation, the agent’s brother offered Heidsieck a stack of deeds granting him 1/3 ownership of a tiny village in Colorado. And while initially Heidsieck scoffed, that tiny village became one of the largest and wealthiest cities on the American frontier and, with the proceeds Champagne Charlie earned by selling his deeds to Denver, he was able to relaunch his champagne house. Today, over 120 years after Champagne Charlie’s death, Piper Heidsieck is one of the premier champagne houses in France and America still has a love affair with champagne.Les Americains might still be teetollers if it weren’t for Champagne Charlie, who filled flutes to the brim across the Atlantic rim when he visited the Etats-Unis. The Age of Innocence didn’t know what hit them when the fun-loving francophone Charles Heidsieck swaggered onto the haute New York City society scene with bottles of bubbly tucked under his arm.

The eponymously named son of a champagne merchant, Charles was appalled to notice while on his grand tour of Nouvelle Angleterre et Nouvelle York that the swank fetes he attended from Back Bay to the Breakers to the Upper East Side were bereft of bubbly. Coming from a long family tradition of never-one-to-miss-an-opportunity (his father, after all, was famous for riding ahead of Napoleon with cases of champagne to sell for the famed victory parties) he immediately saw the potential for exporting his French family brew to the United States and considered it to be his life’s mission to inebriate the American bourgeois. And once he plied heirs and heiresses with their first “taste of the stars” they thought he’d hung the moon.

America loved Charlie. And Charlie loved champagne.
Charles quickly found a sales agent to help him import champagne from his home near Reims to the nouveau monde. Parades and banquets were held in his honor with corks popping and pomp and circumstance following him wherever he went. The New York Times sang his praises, giving the type of publicity the PR agencies representing champagne houses today pray for. Almost overnight, Champagne Charlie was living the American Dream.

Santé!
Bonjour Paris

BRANSON B. HIP-HOP’S UNOFFICIAL SOMMELIER HAS LAUNCHED HIS OWN CHAMPAGNE BRAND

On a ragged stretch of sidewalk in northwest Harlem across the street from a dingy bodega, a weathered wooden door separates the outside world from an oenophiles’ wonderland. A homemade bar dominates the room, backed by walls plastered with cutouts from wine publications. Empty bottles of Nicolas Feuillatte, Armand de Brignac and Cristal loom like a hunter’s trophies along the shelves.

On a torpid summer evening, Branson Belchie–better known as Branson B., hip-hop’s unofficial sommelier–hovers behind the bar in search of an acceptable champagne, every move punctuated by a slight flutter of his dreadlocks. Life is too short to struggle through a bad bottle of bubbly.

“I never particularly cared for Moet, personally,” Branson offers. “Moet has a tendency to give me a headache. Back in the day, we drank Clicquot. I turned a lot of people on to Clicquot.” He lowers his voice. “At the time, Clicquot was really good.”

Branson is the man who introduced Cristal, Dom Perignon and a number of other pricey brands to his friends Christopher “Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace and Sean “Diddy” Combs in the late 1980s. Within a few years, that suggestion sprouted into hip-hop’s full-fledged obsession with champagne. Branson is widely credited with starting the craze, and his name has been mentioned in more than 60 songs over the past two decades.

A self-described street entrepreneur, Branson, 52, got involved in the entertainment business during the early 1990s, serving as road manager for R&B singer Chris Williams and DeVante Swing of Jodeci. He also did consulting work for a number of other artists, and later for the producers of the film American Gangster. As Branson’s career blossomed, so did his taste in champagne. He bought Biggie a six-liter bottle of Taittinger brut one year for the rapper’s birthday; on another occasion, he provided bottles of Cristal and Dom Perignon to singers Faith Evans and Luther Vandross.

“You bust a bottle, pour a couple glasses, and just sip on it as they engage in the creative process,” says Branson. “Sometimes people acquire a taste for one or the other. Like, ‘Yo, I really like that Cristal.’ You go back through there, they’ve got their own bottle of Cristal and they’re offering you a drink now.”

By the turn of the century Branson was beginning to realize that he’d created a trusted brand–and that it was time to capitalize. So he teamed up with Guy Charlemagne champagne to create his own label, Guy Charlemagne Selected By Branson B. In 2004 Branson traveled to France’s Champagne region to handpick the grapes for a blanc de blancs, a brut rosé and a 2000 vintage Grand Cru.

A longtime patron of Guy Charlemagne, Branson used the winemaker’s existing offerings as a template and tweaked them to his satisfaction. The process was simple enough for someone with a palate as refined as his. “If you want a little more zest to it,” he says, “you add more pinot grapes.”

Branson launched his champagnes in 2005, starting with 100 cases distributed between a handful of stores in New York. All three earned high marks from Wine Spectator, which gave the blanc de blancs a coveted 91 rating, praising its “subtle length on the finish” and its “fine balance and intensity.” Branson’s products also caught the attention of J.R. Battipaglia, store manager of Garnet Wine and Spirits on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

“They’re really good wines, really top quality wines,” he says. “The grapes come from a village with very chalky soil. The whites tend to be very mineraly, with almost a hint of sea salt, very crisp. For the people in the champagne world who want to experience these things, it’s a unique experience.”

Battipaglia, who still carries Branson’s bubbly, says sales have slowed during the recession, but no more than other champagne labels. Meanwhile, Branson hasn’t gotten quite as much support from the hip-hop crowd as he’d expected–many artists are too busy shilling their own spirits to give him any publicity. Branson’s old friend Diddy plugs Ciroc vodka, Ludacris recently launched a cognac called Conjure, and T.I. inked an endorsement deal with Remy Martin.

Undaunted, Branson is pressing forward. Over the past few months he’s been wading through the paperwork needed to sell his wines in other states and online, hoping that a Web presence will help take sales to the next level.

“I’m just trying to solidify a market share,” he says. “I don’t want to be an overnight situation. I want to build a solid company, a solid brand, and I want people that aspire to this lifestyle to consider my product when they decide they want a glass of champagne.” His blanc de blancs ($45), brut rosé ($50) and 2000 vintage Grand Cru ($75) are relative bargains for champagnes of their quality, according to independent wine buyer and critic Lyle Fass. But Branson may need to reconsider the cost of his champagne if he wants to make a big splash in the rap world. “No hip-hopper is going to buy those wines at that price,” says Fass. “He needs to mark them up.”

A $45 sticker price may not be glamorous enough for the average rapper, but back at his champagne speakeasy in Harlem, Branson seems unconcerned. Emerging from behind the bar, he softly pops open a bottle of his 2000 vintage and tips a trickle of champagne to the floor before filling two flutes. “To life.”

“You know,” he says, taking a long sip, “I think what makes a champagne great is that you enjoy it.”

Forbes.com