Jiles's Blog

Here's a quick round up of what's been going on in and around Champagne in February

It’s cold out in the vineyards
February is usually a quiet month in Champagne. Some vignerons are busy with pruning but many others prefer to rely on the old adage ‘ Taille tôt, taille tard, rien ne vaut la taille de mars’ which put simply means ‘Nothing beats pruning in March’. In truth, perhaps they just hope that the weather will be a little milder in March.

But warmer inside
Instead of working outside, for many champagne makers February is a time to taste and evaluate the wines from last year’s harvest and to address the complex task of blending. In larger establishments blending may involve dozens or hundreds of bottles and a whole team of oenologists all taking notes and making a contribution to the final decisions.
The other end of the scale sees many small family groups often spanning several generations, sat around a table, tasting a dozen or so bottles, with calculators and note books at the ready, and using the same tried and tested procedure that they have used for years and years.
Both scenes are an integral part of life in Champagne

Travel plans
February is also a good time for planning the year ahead if it hasn’t already been done. Many champagne makers take the opportunity to make business trips to see existing customers and to prospect for new customers, although this year has proven difficult in this regard because of the uncertainties posed by the Corona virus.

Sales are looking rosé
On the sales front, Valentine’s Day is the big event and although there are no data for 2020 available as yet, it is hoped that this year will have seen another increase in the popularity of rosé champagne which is traditionally associated with romance and St. Valentine’s days especially in the USA where in 2019 the value of rosé champagne sales increased by over 50% in the week of St. Valentine’s Day compared with the previous week according to the research agency Nielsen

Awards
Louis Roederer, Charles Heidsieck and Pol Roger were named and the No. 1, 2 and 3 most admired champagne brands by Drinks International
The evaluation included the quality of the champagne and other criteria such as the marketing and packaging as well as the overall customer appeal.
Not many major surprises at the top of the list, but one or two interesting entries a little further down including a few cooperatives (Castelnau, Pannier, Le Mesnil, for example).
Personally, I am not sure of the value of this classification for the majority of champagne drinkers. As with so many similar competitions I am always left wondering who else entered the competition and did not make the list or were there only the 30 entries that appear on the list.
Still, as they say, there is no such thing as bad publicity, so I guess the brand featured on the list will be pleased.

That's it's for this month. See you in March

You may remember this haunting melody sung by Frank Sinatra back in the 1960s – he won a Grammy for it in 1966. Or perhaps you’ve heard it more recently on the TV series The Sopranos?  

But what about 2019? Was it a good year for Champagne? The shipment figures are a bit disappointing but, as they say, It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good and the silver lining for 2019 may well be the number of women who are rising to prominence in the Champagne trade

Most Champagne lovers will already know that there have been many powerful and determined women who have shaped the history and fortunes of Champagne over the centuries, and whose names are still famous today.

 Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin (La Veuve Clicquot), Elisabeth (Lily) Bollinger, and Louise Pommery are probably the names that spring most readily to mind, but which women would you mention in more recent times?

Carol Duval Leroy, head of the eponymous Champagne house, is certainly one.

She recalls a story of her early days as the head of the house

I remember one of my first visits to the press house after I became President of the company. It was at Cramant in La Côte des Blancs. When I got to the press house one of the workers stopped me and told me that he didn’t need any more women harvesters. I introduced myself and he was not a little embarrassed.

A lot has changed since then for Madame Duval. Apart from managing what is now a very significant player in Champagne she is also, according to one report, the 4^th richest person in the world of Champagne and in the top 250 richest people in France.

But who else would you cite?

Although I know a lot of talented and hard-working women in Champagne, I can’t say that they are as well-known as perhaps they should be, so what follows is a list ( far from exhaustive) of the many women who have achieved or sustained positions of success in 2019 in a variety of capacities in Champagne.

The list is by brand name because you’ll probably recognise those more easily

 It’s up to you whether you find this list surprisingly diverse , inspiring long, or disappointing short.

Management

Krug - Margareth Henriquez – President  (picture)      

Nicolas Feuillatte – Veronique Blin – President

Duval Leroy – Carol Duval  – President

Taittinger – Vitalie Taittinger - President

Boizel – Evelyne Roques-Boizel – President until 2019

Laurent Perrier – Alexandra and Stéphanie de Nonancourt – Directors

Bruno Paillard – Alice Paillard- Brabant – Managing Director

AR Lenoble – Alice Malassagne – Joint President

Thiénot – Garance Thiénot – joint Managing Director

Chefs de Caves

Krug - Julie Cavil,

Henriot - Alice Tétienne (picture)

Castelnau -  Elisabeth Sarcelet

Ayala - Caroline Latrive

Joseph Perrier - Nathalie Laplaige

Duval Leroy - Sandrine Logette-Jardin

 

 

Family businesses

The women in this list are likely to be involved in everything from working in the vineyards to being the ambassador of their brands at wine shows in France and overseas and almost everything else in between

J. Lassalle - Chantal Decelle et Angeline Templier

Virginie T – Virginie Taittinger

Marie-Copinet – Marie Lure Kowal – also President of the association Les Mains du Terroir

Philipe Gonet – Chantal Brégeon-Gonet (picture) 

Claude Cazals – Delphine Cazals

Natalie Falmet - Natalie Falmet

Marie- Noëlle Ledru - Marie- Noëlle Ledru

Françoise Bedal – Françoise Bedel

Lionel Carreau - Oriane Carreau

Marlène Delong - Marlène Delong

Chapuy - Elodie Higonet

 

Last but not least, I have to include the 7 vigneronnes who have joined forces to market their champagnes under the banner

Les Fabuleuses

Laureen Baillette ,

Hélène Beaugrand ,

Claire Blin,

Mathilde Bonnevie,

Charlotte de Sousa,

Delphine Brulez ,

Sophie Milesi-Moussié

There are so many more women that could be added to the list and even then one could claim, probably with justification, that women are under-represented. However that’s a topic outside the scope of this article which is just to give credit where credit is due and to introduce you to some of the current and future movers and shakers, in Champagne of whom you may not yet have heard – you probably will before too long.

Leave a comment if you know of any other talented women who absolutely should be in this list and equally, if you love Champagne and want to discover even more about it, you can do exactly that by clicking on the link below

Behind all the tasting notes, the wine competitions, the food pairing and all the wonderful occasions that punctuate the year in Champagne, it’s important to remember that, when all is said and done, champagne is a business.

This was brought to the forefront of our attention this week when several companies announced their annual results for 2019, and very contrasting results they were too. LVMH (including the wines and spirits branch, Moët Hennessy) continued its inexorable growth, whilst other brands had a difficult year.

What are these results and what’s going on to explain them?

Are champagne flutes a thing of the past?

And does the question conceal a different challenge for Champagne?

If you go back far enough in history it seems that, even as long ago as the late 17^th century when Champagne first appeared on the scene, there was a variety of shapes and sizes of glass to choose from. Short and stubby, tall and narrow, clear glass and opaque glass (that was common before riddling and disgorging had been perfected and champagne was often a bit murky). You could find them all.

Sometime later, perhaps around the time of Louis XVI, although some say rather earlier, the coupe glass made an appearance and, in one variation or another, the coupe remained popular through Victorian times, to the roaring 20s, on into the Hollywood era of the 1950s and even beyond.

Perhaps it’s because of the associations with those, apparently, glamourous times in the past that the coupe glass has a certain nostalgia attached to it: there’s nothing to match coupe glasses for building a champagne pyramid and to this day the coupe is still regarded as the perfect glass for many cocktails. You only have to look at the Moet Golden Hour glass used at this year’s Golden Globe awards.

The criticism often levelled at coupe glasses is that the aromas dissipate before they can be really appreciated and that the effervescence dies away too quickly. The first part is certainly correct – the aromas spread out sideways rather than being focussed upwards towards the  nose, but the part about the bubbles dying away too quickly always seems irrelevant to me because the bubbles in Champagne persist for far longer than it takes an average person to finish the glass anyway.

Be that as it may, by the time the 1970s arrived the coupe was falling out of favour and being replaced by the tall, elegant, longer-stemmed flute. (It’s probably just a coincidence, but an intriguing one, that the real boom in Champagne sales, 1960 – 2000, coincided with the popularity of the flute glass). Anyway, one might have expected the popularity of the flute to be unchallenged for many a year yet, but recently the preeminent position of the flute is coming under threat.

These days there is a growing body of opinion, especially amongst more practiced champagne drinkers, that holds that flutes are too tall and narrow to appreciate the full complexity of champagne. They’re just not wide enough to swirl the wine and release the aromas and if you do try to swirl the champagne around in a flute you’ll probably slop it inelegantly over the sides and over your hand too.

The answer, according to this side of the debate, is to go for a much larger, rounder glass, more akin to the type of glass you’d use to serve still white or red wine, and a plethora of variations on this theme are being put forward as the perfect solution by wine writers, glass manufacturers, sommeliers and commentators of all sorts. Some of the leading Champagne houses, including Veuve Clicquot are advocating larger glasses so that you can add ice cubes to your champagne.

However, when we take a closer look at this trend and ask who is it that is calling for the flute to be done away with and why, it reveals a sort of identity crisis that Champagne has perhaps got itself into and which needs very careful handling by those who influence the image and reputation of Champagne.

As far back as anyone can remember Champagne has always been synonymous with celebration.

It’s the ‘good time’ drink par excellence.

It’s the almost obligatory accompaniment to many of life’s most emotional moments and if it’s more expensive than most other wines, what the heck! This is a special occasion that warrants a little extravagance.

Whether this imagery came about by design, or by accident, it’s sheer marketing gold and it has stood Champagne in good stead for centuries. So much so, in fact, that Champagne has come to be seen as something apart from other wines. You only have to look at the headings in any wines list: there are wines in one section and then there are Champagnes in a separate section.

However, over the past 20 years or so, many champagne houses have been at pains to present Champagne in a rather more ‘serious’ light and to emphasise its qualities as a gastronomic wine to be matched with a wide variety of foods and served during, and perhaps even throughout, a meal.

One wonders why this shift in positioning was deemed necessary.

Was it because the market for Champagne as a celebratory drink was declining and a new niche had to be found?

Was it perhaps out of a feeling of inferiority versus the great Bordeaux and Burgundy wines?

Was it just out of a desire to keep to increasing sales by finding new Champagne drinking occasions?

Who knows? However, it is not far-fetched to conclude that the tendency to drink champagne out of larger, rounder glasses stems directly from the desire to present Champagne as a wine to serve with food and the equal of any other great wine.

The next question then is how many people actually drink champagne with a meal?

Actually, I have to hold my hand up here because I entirely agree that Champagne is fabulous served with a meal and that it is far more than just a wine to go with aperitifs. Champagne can match sublimely with a whole host of dishes from start to finish of any meal. BUT, and it’s a big but, I don’t think that I am representative of the vast majority of Champagne drinkers and I would venture to suggest that wine writers and sommeliers and many of those advocating the adoption of larger glasses and the abandonment of the flute are not typical champagne drinkers either.

I don’t think that many people do drink Champagne with a meal and, what’s more, I doubt that the majority of Champagne drinkers ever will, even if bombarded with marketing about the suitability of Champagne as an accompaniment to food.

It’s my view that most people still see Champagne as an aperitif drink to start off an event and to provide the ‘feel good factor’ to make them feel special. Most Champagne drinkers are not really interested in lingering over the complexities of the aromas, or the nuances of the colour, so the issue of whether they have a flute glass or a wider glass is irrelevant to most of them.

The danger for the imagery and appeal of Champagne, is that by promoting Champagne as a fine wine for mealtimes, the celebratory image built up over so many years is in some way diluted.

This may be unlikely, I admit, but the possibility exists.

The most sensible outcome would seem therefore to let everyone make up their own mind about which glass they prefer and what suits the occasion when the Champagne will be served. This means allowing a role for a whole range of glasses from coupe, to flute, to a wider more wine-style glass

This also means avoiding telling anyone that they ‘should’ be using this type of glass or the other type of glass, or that it’s ‘wrong’ to use one type or another.

And last, just to throw another cat amongst the pigeons, it’s my guess that the coupe glass will make a comeback before the wider wine-style glasses catch on with the general public.

You read it here first. I wonder if I will have to eat my words one day.