Champagne Flashcards
What are the white grapes permissible in champagne?
Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Arbane, Petit Meslier
What step in the method champagnoise is at the heart of champagne’s character?
secondary fermentation in bottle
What is assemblage?
Blending
What does the word mousseux imply?
Effervesence
Which is the oldest champagne house still in operation today? When was it founded?
Gosset (founded as a still wine house)
1584
Reuinart (founded as a sparkling wine house)
1729
In days past, before sparkling wine in Champagne, which wine region was the Champenoise competing with?
Burgundy
At the turn of the 19th century, what inventions and discoveries helped solidify the champagne industry and turn it into a huge industry?
Veuve Clicquot - Remuage discovery
Jean-Antoine Chaptal - identifying the relationship between sugar and fermentation
André François’ - Ability to measure amount of sugar that could be added without breaking the bottle
In tandem, there were improvements in both cork and glass making
Which Champagne house put the first brut nature on the market? When?
Pommery put the first brut Champagne, Pommery “Nature,” on the market in 1874
After 1908, when was Aube reinstated in the Champagne region?
1927 - Aube was reinstated as a full region within the appellation
On a Champagne label, does AOP/AOC need to be stated?
No.
It’s the only AOC/AOP that does not need to state so on the label
When did phylloxera first strike the vineyards of champagne?
1890’s
With phylloxera, some producers imported sparkling wine and then tried to pass it off as champagne leading to a major Fraud problem and heightening tensions between merchants and growers
Who harvested the vineyards in the 1914 vintage?
Women, children, elderly and those unfit for service. 1914 was considered one of the best vintages of the 20th century despite men being called to war for the start of WW1 which pummeled the Champagne vineyards for 4 years.
Who organized Comité Interprofessional du Vin de Champagne (CIVC) and when?
1941
Robert-Jean de Vogüé of Moët et Chandon
de Vogue created it be a new, broader consortium of growers, producers and shippers to represent the Champagne industry and protect its interests in the face of Nazi occupation.
That organization, the Comité Interprofessional du Vin de Champagne (CIVC), remains a powerful force in the complex mediation between the large Champagne houses and the numerous smaller growers from whom they source grapes.
Today, merchant houses own just over 10% of Champagne’s vineyards, as the Contrôle des Structures prohibits any firm from farming more than fifteen owned or rented hectares. As a collective, the approximately 20,000 growers have a very powerful voice, despite selling under a quarter of all wine produced.
When was the inaugural vintage of Moet and Chandon’s “Dom Perignon”?
1921
This tete de cuvée release, prompted others to release their own tete de cuvees.
What are the largest markets for champagne?
UK, USA, Germany, Japan - these account for half of all champagne exports
What parallels does the champagne region lie on?
48th and 49th
What are major concerns for champagne growers?
Frost, rain, fungal disease and hail.
Underripe grapes
What is bouvreux?
Bouvreux is reference to a second crop of grapes when the first ones get rained on and reflowering occurs. Bouvreux grapes generally get left on the vine and as they almost never ripen and, hence, never get picked.
What is the primary soil type champagnes slopes?
Porous belemnite chalk subsoil.
Belemnite is a soil derived from millions of fossilized remains of extinct cephalopods that has a high limestone content which allows vine roots to dig deeply and is linked to an increase in acidity.
What is the primary soil type in the valleys of champagne?
Micraster chalk, named for an extinct sea urchin, characterizes the valley vineyards
What is the dominant soil type in Aube?
Clay
What is the most planted grape in Champagne?
Pinot Noir
What is a “Marc” of grapes?
4,000 kg - the amount held in a traditional Coquard basket press
What are the 4 pruning methods permitted in Champagne?
Cordon de Royat
Chablis
Vallée de la Marne
Guyot (double and simple)
Which cities are many of the major commercial champagne houses located in?
Reims, Épernay and Aÿ
How many villages are authorized to grow grapes for Champagne?
357
What are the 5 districts of Champagne?
The Montagne de Reims Vallée de la Marne Côte des Blancs Côte de Sézanne Côte des Bars (the Aube)
What’s a synonym for Côte des Bars?
Aube
What is the dominant grape in Vallée de la Marne?
Pinot Meunier
What regions predominantly grow Chardonnay?
Côte de Sézanne & Cote de Blancs
Which regions predominantly grow Pinot Noir?
Montagne de Reims & the Aube
In Champagne, is crus status awarded to vineyards or villages or both?
Villages
However, the areas authorized for cultivation within each commune are strictly defined
How many grand cru villages are there?
17 villages have grand cru status
42 are classified as premier cru according to their rankings in the Échelle de Crus.
What is the CIVC?
The regulatory body responsible for mediating relations between growers and producers.
It oversees the production methods and promotion of Champagne.
The CIVC regulates the size of harvests, authorizes blocage and deblocage—respectively the reserve and release of wine stocks for use in future vintages—and safeguards the protected designation of Champagne
What was the Échelle de Crus system?
Échelle de Crus was a true percentile system.
Until 1990, a village’s échelle rating represented the set percentage of price that a grower could receive for fruit. Thus, growers in grand cru villages would receive the full price set by the CIVC, and other villages would receive a percentage equivalent to their échelle rating
What is a Négociant Manipulant?
A Négociant Manipulant (NM) is a house that purchases grapes and or base wines from growers and other smaller houses. Some NM houses own a significant portion of their own vineyards; others own none at all.
Large Champagne houses with the most international presence are invariably in this category: Moët et Chandon, Louis Roederer, Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin, Billecart-Salmon, Lanson, Taittinger, Pol Roger, Perrier-Jouët, Mumm, and Laurent-Perrier.
Quality varies widely, although prices are uniformly high. Many houses often fall under the same corporate parentage; for example, Moët et Chandon, Krug, Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin, and Mercier fall under the umbrella of the luxury conglomerate LVMH.
What is a recoltant manipulant?
RM (Récoltant Manipulant): A grower-producer who makes Champagne from estate-grown fruit. 95% of the grapes must originate in the producer’s own vineyards.
What percentage of grapes must originate from a producers vineyard for them to call themselves a recoltan manipulant?
95%
What is a cooperative manipulant (CM)?
Coopérative Manipulant (CM) is a growers’ co-operative that produces the wine under a single brand.
What is a Récoltant Coopérateur?
A grower whose grapes are vinified at a co-operative, but sells the wine under his own label.
What is a Société de Récoltants?
A firm, not a co-operative, set up by a union of often related growers, who share resources to make their wines and collectively market several brands.
What is a Négociant Distributeur?
A middleman company that distributes Champagne it did not make.
What is a Marque d’Acheteur?
A buyer’s own brand, often a large supermarket chain or restaurant, that purchases Champagne and sells it under its own label.
What is the extraction limit for champagne?
102 liters from 160kg grapes or 2,550 liters from 4,000 kg
The first 2050 liters of extracted juice is called?
Vin de cuvee
What is the last 500 liters of extracted juice called?
Vin de taille (which is usually richer in pigment and tannin than vin de cuvee).
Many producers sell off this lesser component of the must or include it in a minor proportion as a structural element in a blend