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Henri’s Reserve – The Art Of Boutique Champagne
Did you know that every last Friday in October now has a designated “wine holiday”? Yep, and not just any wine holiday – it is actually a Global Champagne Day (Champagne and Friday perfectly go together, don’t they?) My “problem” (may all of our problems be so hard) of choosing the bottle of Champagne to open to celebrate Global Champagne Day last Friday was taken care of by invitation I got from Henri’s Reserve – to come and celebrate Champagne Day in style at Southport Galleries in Connecticut.
Henri’s Reserve is a boutique Champagne purveyor, primarily focusing on the small, artisanal Champagne producers. Most of the common Champagne people buy in the stores come from so called Champagne Houses, such as Moët & Chandon, Bollinger, Louis Roederer, Veuve Cliquot and many others. For the most part, Champagne houses buy the grapes from the grape growers, and make (blend) their wines to have a persistent, chateau-specific taste. At the same time, a number of grape growers (there are about 19,000 of them in Champagne) also produce their own wines. Until recently, those wines were literally impossible to find outside of France – but over the last 5-7 years, the situation changed and so called Growers Champagne became more available in US and other countries.
You might ask what is so special about Growers Champagne? While Champagne houses are mostly focused on blending to achieve their house-specific taste, growers are a lot more terroir-driven. Growers know their best vineyards and best parcels inside those vineyards, and that knowledge translates into unique wines with the sense of place – often at a lot more affordable price than the wine coming from the big houses. To give you one example, one of my favorite Champagnes from this tasting, Egly-Ouriet Grand Cru, comes form the village of Ambonnay. One of the most exclusive Champagne houses in the world, Krug, also produces the wine from the vineyards in the Ambonnay village. That Krug wine, called Clos de Ambonnay, would set you back at around $2700 per bottle (probably the most expensive Champagne on the market). While I’m not comparing Egly-Ouriet Champagne with Krug (never tasted Clos de Ambonnay), it costs almost 40 times less that that bottle of Krug, and at around $70, it is really an excellent Champagne.
Getting back to Henri’s Reserve – they actually make the Growers Champagnes available to the average wine consumer. If you look at Henri’s Reserve web site, you will find a lot of useful information about Champagne in general, pairing of Champagne with the food, how to open the Champagne bottle, entertaining with Champagne and a lot more. What is most important, though, is that you will be able to buy some of those excellent growers Champagnes.
Ruth Frantz of Henri’s Reserve addressing the audience
Now, let’s talk about our Global Champagne Day celebration. We had an opportunity to try 9 different Grower Champagnes. I didn’t focus on taking the detailed notes, as I was very busy mingling, so below is the list of the wines we tried with my brief notes. Don’t worry, it will be easy to figure out if I had any favorites.
NV Guiborat Fils Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs, Cramant (100% Chardonnay) – clean crisp acidity, a bit of brioche on the nose. Very good. Drinkability: 7+
NV Jacques Lassaigne Banc de Blancs Le Vignes de Mongueux (100% Chardonnay) – also perfectly clean and crisp, touch of yeast on the nose. Very good. Drinkability: 7+
2006 Guiborat Fils Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs, Cramant (100% Chardonnay) – has all the traits of vintage Champagne – brioche, toasted bread, apples, touch of yeast – but very delicately balanced, not over the top. Very good. Drinkability: 7+
NV Egly-Ouriet Brut Tradition Grand Cru, Ambonay (70% Pinot Noir, 30% Chardonnay) – a beautiful wine. Touch of yeast on the nose, crisp acidity and noticeable fruit notes on the palate – not in the terms of sweetness, but just more pronounced white fruit sensation than it would be in the typical Champagne. Outstanding. Drinkability: 8+
NV H. Blin Brut, Vincelles (80% Pinot Meunier, 20% Chardonnay) – perfect acidity with somewhat of a medium body, nice mid-palate weight, very round. Excellent. Drinkability: 8-
NV Pierre Gimonnet & Fils 1er Cru Brut Blanc de Blancs Sélection Belles Anneés (100% Charodnnay) – very nice nose of brioche and touch of apple, same on the palate with some interesting mineral undertones. Very good. Drinkability: 8-
2002 H. Blin Blin’s Brut Edition Limitée Millésimé (40% Pinot Meunier, 30% Pinot Noir, 30% Chardonnay) – this wine was the last one in the tasting, and it didn’t reach the optimal serving temperature, unfortunately (was too warm).
NV H. Billiot Grand Cru Brut Rosé, Ambonnay (80% Pinot Meunier, 20% Chardonnay) – crisp, clean, may be a bit too acidic for Rosé. Or may be it was too cold (can Champagne be too cold?). Drinkability: 7
NV Jean Laurent Blanc de Noirs, Celles-sur–Ource (100% Pinot Noir) – very nice, medium body, interesting complexity. Very good. Drinkability: 7+
I have a confession to make. I’m not a Champagne guy. I appreciate a glass of a good bubbly, whether it is Champagne, or Prosecco, or Cava – but Sparkling wine is not my usual daily wine. Having said that, you know what happened after this tasting? I was craving Champagne! I resolve not to wait until the next Global Champagne Day to satisfy that craving – and you might expect to see more sparkles in this blog. Thank you, Henri’s Reserve, for the great time! Cheers!
Tasting Series At Cost Less Wines – Part 1, Grown Up Champagne (Growers Champagne, It Is)
Holidays are great (hmmm, that’s a deep and original thought, huh). On one side, life gets really hectic – too many things to do, and not enough time. On another side, it is a special time, and people do special things. Wine is important part of any celebration, so holiday times are rich with great wine experiences. Particularly, starting from last Thursday, there were different wine tastings at Cost Less Wines in Stamford, which will continue until the end of this week. And if you are looking for special experiences – you don’t want to miss any of them (I know, it is Monday already – but better to start late than never!).
Thursday was a special day for the Champagnes. Indisputable king of any celebration, and ten times so for the New Year – Champagne requires no introduction. There are many many other similar wines, which are called “sparkling wines” as a group – but this is not the subject of this blog post, as it was not the subject of the wine tasting. Talking about Champagne, a number of familiar names comes to mind – Moët & Chandon (makers of famous Dom Pérignon), Louis Roederer (makers of Cristal), Taittinger, Veuve Clicquot – but we will not be talking about them here.
As wine overall is getting more popular in US, year after year, more of the interesting wines are becoming available here. In regards to Champagne, there is a growing phenomenon called Growers Champagne. All the Champagne names mentioned above belong to so called Champagne Houses. Champagne Houses do not grow their own grapes – they source their grapes from the whole Champagne region, and then blend the grapes to achieve particular taste profile, specific for each individual House. When it comes to the Growers Champagne, all the grapes are by the winery, which then makes the Champagne wine – only 5% of the grapes can come from outside to be eligible for “Growers Champagnes” designation. Growers Champagnes had being around from the beginning of actual commercial Champagnes, but only in the last 5 years or so, such wines became known in the United States. Before we talk about tasting, just one last note – you can recognize Growers Champagne by initials RM, which stands for Récoltant-Manipulant, which can be found on the label. Traditional Champagnes are typically designated as NM, Négociant-Manipulant. If you want to read more on the subject – wikipedia, as usual, provides great wealth of information.
Let’s talk about the tasting. There were 4 Growers Champagnes represented in the tasting: Chateau Aubry, Chateau Chartogne – Taillet Saint-Anne, Champagne Pierre Gimonnet & Fils and Champagne 
Gastone Chiquet 2002. The first one, Chateau Aubry was a bit all over the place – yes, it was sparkling wine, but I didn’t get much pleasure out of it. The next 3 delivered different experience. Chateau Chartogne – Taillet had nice yeasty nose and aromas of brioche and fresh bread. Chateau Pierre Gimonnet had nice clean nose and good refreshing acidity – totally different ffrom the previous one, it was still warmly inviting and asking to take another sip.
The best in tasting, however, was Chateau Gaston Chiquet 2002, the only vintage champagne in this tasting. Light and effervescent, medium to full body wine, showing its pedigree with aromas and taste of apples and fresh bread – definitely very nice bubbly (should we also mention great QPR at $50/bottle?).
Great wines, great experience. It would be very interesting to compare the Growers Champagnes with the other sparkling wines – I’m sure you can see the the blind tasting working its way in here. But don’t wait for me – experiment, try something new – find the bottle of Growers Champagne and tell me if it will brighten your Holidays. And just to give you a hint – we are traveling from France to Scotland with the next post…
Wine Retail: Cost Less Wines and Liquors, Stamford, CT
In order to drink wine (better: drink GOOD wine), we all have to get it somewhere. Outside of getting the wine as a present, “get wine” equals “buy wine”. There are few ways to go about buying wine. You can do it at the winery – often works well, you can try before you buy and get information. Then of course you can buy it online – this is most difficult method, as you have to know precisely what you are doing, wine can be damaged during shipping (I don’t mean broken bottle, think about summer heat, for instance). And the simplest way – buy the wine at the good local wine store. Well, it is simplest if you happened to know where this good local wine store is.
I want to bring to your attention my favorite wine store in Stamford – Cost Less Wines & Liquors (1073 High Ridge Road, (203) 329-2900), the good wine store. What am I looking for in a wine store? Yes, of course wine, but this is not the point. In no particular order, but good prices, selection, service, knowledgeable staff and overall store organization are all very important for the good wine store. Lets talk about these elements.
Store organization: Cost Less is easy to navigate. All the wines are grouped into the regions with easy access, with sparkling wines and kosher wines located in the separate sections. Beer and all different types of liquors (Scotch, whiskey, cognac and so on) located along the wall:
Great Selection: Store offers great selection in every section. Despite the limited size (store is not huge), all wine making regions are well represented – California, Washington, Oregon, France, Spain, Italy, South Africa, Germany, Austria, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Chile, Israel (I’m sure I forgot something) – and all sections are well stocked. There is a lot of interesting wines on the shelves, such as Staglin Cabernet Sauvignon (96 points from Wine Spectator, and don’t forget to look at the price):
Another point on the subject of great selection is Growers Champagne. Demand for Growers Champagne is quite recent phenomena, so very few store carry them. Here is a brief description from Wikipedia: “While large Champagne houses, such as Mumm, may use grapes sourced from as many as 80 different vineyards, Grower Champagnes tend to be more terroir focused, being sourced from single or closely located vineyards around a village.” Cost Less got great selection already, and probably will offer even more in the future (if you had not tried one yet, I highly recommend that you will try it rather sooner than later):
Great selection of beers, with a lot of quite unique offerings (you can see one of my previous posts on this subject – all beers came from Cost Less). Excellent selection of cognac, tequila and vodka, and amazing selection of scotch, including some very unique offerings (note to self – not to use “unique offerings” repeatedly… but what should I do if I think they are?):
If I may, I would like to mention that Rosebank distillery is closed, so I don’t think there are too many bottles left as the one shown above. And if you take a look at the prices (30 years old single malt for $220 – WOW) that brings us to the next characteristic of a great store – good prices.
Good prices: as you can already see from the pictures, there are great prices all over the store. All the wines and liquors are well priced, compare to any other wine store in Stamford and around. There is also 10% discount on the mixed case purchases (as long as the wine is not sold at the minimum state price). On this subject, I must bring to your attention one of my favorite California Cabernet wines, Ladera:
Take a good look at the price – the best price for magnum ( 1.5L) on the Wine Searcher is $59.99 (don’t forget to add shipping!), so I pretty much rest my case on the pricing.
Service and knowledgeable staff: you got it all. Store owner, Zak, is always available to answer questions, recommend wine or simply stand aside and let you browse through the selection without any pressure – I think this is the great talent ( I really don’t like being attacked in the store as you walk in – that never happens at Cost Less). If the wine you are looking for is not available in the store all you need to do is to ask Zak to get it for you – it is that easy.
And to add one more point: if you reading my blog, you know how much I value opportunity to “experience” things. Along these lines, every Friday and Saturday, there is wine tasting at the store, where you can experience great wines, such as, for instance, Charles Mara or Duckhorn:
With the holidays coming, and wine being definitely important part of any celebration – head on to the Cost Less, you will not regret you did (hmmm, sounds like an advertisement, and I really didn’t mean it… or may be I did, just a little bit). Ahh, and don’t forget that Beaujolais nouveau will be released on Thursday (November 18, 2010) – who knows, I might run into you at Zak’s…
Last Bottle Sign Up ($10 credit)
Talk-A-Vino 