As I mentioned above, I really wish the producers would tell us the disgorgement date (a month and year or even a quarter and year would be great). I understand that printing a date on the bottle may be a pain, but why not have a section on the website where we can input the Lot code and get information on the bottle? In a perfect world, I could tell the years & grapes in the blend, vinification, dosage, disgorgement date, and more just by typing in the lot number (or some other type of bottle code) into the producer’s website. The producers already have the information on file and most have websites. I have to believe this would be a very cost effective way to get information out to the consumers who care about it. This would also address the issue of producers who don’t want to “dirty” up their bottle labels with data that they feel most drinkers don’t care about and could possibly be scared away by. Come on, who wants to go first?!

Beat up after a game of Sunday night football, the bottle below was opened following some pizza and Miller Lite. There are a couple of changes with this vintage of the Grande Année. First off the name has changed. It is now “La Grande Année" and not just “Grande Année”. Why the name change, I don’t know, but “The Great Year” does sound a bit more regal than just plain “Great Year.” I also think “La Grande Année” looks a little better on the label. However, it is the second change that I really am excited about. Starting with the 1997 vintage, Bollinger now puts the disgorgement month and year on the La Grande Année. Since Bollinger disgorges on demand, you can have a vintage with a 3-4 year swing in disgorgement dates. You couldn’t always tell what you were drinking before, but now you can. Bravo Bollinger!


1997 Bollinger La Grande Année
(35% Chardonnay, 65% Pinot Noir; 75% Grand Crus, 25% Premier Crus; Oak fermentation; Disgorged September 2004; $75-125 US)
A strong nose dominated by toasted, nutty biscuits mixes with pears and hints of smoke. It is rather one dimensional in its expression and shows more maturity than I would expect at this point, but I would rather have a wine that chooses a side than one that can’t decide what it wants to be. The palate shows a mix of dry citrus acidity, tart pears, yeast, and hard biscuits. The finish is rather abrupt as it starts full of citrus fruit, but then dries up and drops off the face of the earth. It fights to come back with hints of sweet cream, but it doesn’t quite make it.

The dryness in this wine is a bit worrisome and the abundance of acid to fruit is as well. I can’t see this aging very well and it most likely will peak by age 15 and then become dominated by a dried out acidity. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a very good wine. It is a good example of the 1997 vintage and one to enjoy over the next 5 years. Grade of Low B+ (86-88 pts).  Find this wine

We recently got a Boston Terrier puppy and to celebrate we opened the bottle below. This bottle is a private label made by the Beaumont des Crayeres Cooperative and imported into the US by Eagle Eye Imports. Why someone needs a special bottle just for them, I don’t know, but someone must think it makes good business sense. The label on this bottle is unique as Ay artist Jacky Colson paints a scene of Champagne the wine and Champagne the terroir.

NV Sparnacus/Domaine de l’Epine produced by Beaumont des Crayeres
(40% Chardonnay, 40% Pinot Noir, 20% Pinot Meunier; Some oak fermentation; Disgorged November 2006; $35-45 US)
Gentle aromas of citrus blossoms, cream, and dough go perfectly with this wine’s light hay color. It just gives off the impression of a lazy, late summer dusk. As for the palate, a good dose of orange & mellow pear mix with some minerals & fresh biscuits to bust this bad boy out of the gate. However, after that, this wine doesn’t quite live up to its early billing. Fluffy earth notes add a flabbiness that isn’t very attractive. A bitter citrus bite that comes out on the harsh and somewhat thin finish is also quite disappointing. With some time the bitterness fades a bit and a sweet creamy citrus note replaces it, but the finish always comes off a bit harsh.

While I was not thrilled with the bottle, I did find a good use for it. It can be used in replacement of Bitter Lime to keep your pets from chewing on the furniture. To me, this wine looks and tastes like a rebadged Beaument des Crayerers Grand Prestige Brut… so again, why is this bottle out there as a special cuvee? I don’t like it when car companies rebadge the same car under different divisions and I don’t like it when wine companies do it either. This isn’t a bad Champagne, but there is better out there for the price. Grade of low B- (79-81 pts).  Find this wine

The Lamiable family are growers in the Grand Cru Pinot Noir village of Tours-sur-Marne (Chardonnay is only Premier Cru in this village). Jean-Pierre Lamiable, a sports medicine physician and his daughter Orianne Crepeaux-Lamiable are the winemakers at this estate which dates back to 1600. However, the family has only been in Champagne since 1929.

They own six hectares (approximately 15 acres) of which 4.5 are devoted to Pinot Noir and 1.5 to Chardonnay. The soil is made up of limestone and chalk. Their principal vineyard sites include Les Meslaines (50-60 year old vines) and Clos de Goesse (35-40 year old vines). The top cuvee is the Cuvee Les Meslaines, which is of course 100% Pinot Noir from the Les Meslaines vineyard.

I remember running into a bottle of this sometime in 2004 and thinking, “Wow, a 1999 already on the streets of Michigan.”  Since Michigan seems to get Champagne about a year after the rest of the US, I wonder if other folks were running into this wine in 2003? I purchased and popped a bottle a few years back and found it rather bland and disjointed. It wasn’t memorable. I wondered if time had helped it so I decided to try it again.

1999 Lamiable Cuvee Les Meslaines Grand Cru
(100% Pinot Noir; Tours-sur-Marne; Single Vineyard- Le Meslaine; Dosage 8 g/L; Disgorged 2003?; $60-75 US)
A single vineyard, old vine Pinot Noir? Now that gets me excited! Unfortunately thinking about opening the bottle was the peak of the experience. Once the cork was popped, I found that this wine really needs some time to breathe as it gave nothing for the first hour or so. Eventually, it started to give off some very light aromas of pear and citrus, but it was on day two that this showed best on the nose, when creamy, juicy pears and citrus spiked minerals found their way in. They never shouted or spoke loudly, but at least they were more than a whisper.

The palate was consistent with the nose in that it was most expressive on the second day. A couple of hours after opening, this showed pears, a bit of yeast, and some light citrus. However on day two, it became much more expressive. Flavors of bitter citrus, spiced minerals, thorn laced biscuit dough, and watery pears lead the way into a gooey, creamy, drying finish that just seems wrong.

I don’t like the wine. It is expressive and it gets credit for that, but I don’t like what it is saying. I’m not sure what went wrong here, but I think some extra time on the lees could have helped. As it is, it isn’t worth $25 let alone $60. Remember that a single vineyard, old vines, or grower label do not guarantee quality any more than a fancy shield on a bottle or cellophane wrapper does. Grade of C (73-76 pts).   Find this wine

I have had the Domaine Ste. Michelle tete de cuvee (using that term loosely here) sparkler Luxe quite a few times going back to late 2004. The first time I tried it, I found it to be a decent wine for the price (B-, 80-82 pts) and thought it had the potential to turn into a pretty good value. Further tastings in 2005 (C+, 77-79 pts) and 2006 (High C 75-77 pts) showed this to not be true as the wine appeared to be getting worse. I figured it was time for another update so I cracked another bottle.

1998 Domaine Ste. Michelle Luxe
(100% Chardonnay; Columbia Valley, Washington, USA; First fermentation in Frecnh oak and then aged for 11 months; Dosage 9.5 g/L; 12.8% alc; Disgorged late 2004; $12-20 US)
If they say first impressions are worth millions, this bottle is worth about a dollar. A rather amylic nose greets me with scents of fluffy, bitter fake pear & peach, and stale 25-year-old Topps baseball card bubble gum. The flavors aren’t much better as bitter, thin, dried out citrus mixes with some bland dough and a bit of canned fruit cocktail pear and peach. The finish is horrible as it is like I am licking the old wedding envelopes that killed George’s fiancé on Seinfeld. As with previous tastings, there is a strange, yet attractive, chocolate flavor that plays hide and seek on the palate and finish. That is about the only positive I can find in this wine on day 1.

On day 2, I found this to be a little more appealing (relatively speaking). It isn’t anything more than a slightly below average wine, but at least some juicy pear joins in the bland and dry flavor parade. But, on a whim, I tried something different. I poured the bubbly into a Riedel Vinum Riesling/Chianti glass (I normally use the Riedel Restaurant Champagne glass for tasting) and it became somewhat drinkable. Some sweet peach and pear meshed with fluffy citrus and bourbon-like oak notes. In a way it reminded me of a poor imitation of a young Newton unfiltered Chardonnay toned down and bubbled up. It still wasn’t a great wine, but it was clearly better. In fact, I found more of a difference with this in the different glasses then I have ever seen with a sparkling wine before.

This could have been something, but I don’t feel it was handled right. The oak and aging regime doesn’t seem to fit the wine. This would seem to me to be one to ferment/age in steel or minimal oak and then disgorge and drink when still younger and fresh to accentuate the fruit. If you are not Champagne, pay homage, but don’t try to be Champagne. You will come off as a poser like this wine does. But, I’m not a winemaker so what do I know except that this wine keeps getting worse as time goes on? For half the price, give me one of Chateau Ste. Michelle’s NV bubblies over this… and that is saying something as I don’t like many of those either. I’m also beginning to wonder what to do when bubbly improves a day after being open, but still doesn’t show much potential to improve in the bottle. Add to this the fact that varying the glass it is served in can also alter the experience. Who the heck opens a bottle of bubbly, doesn’t drink it for a day, and experiments with different glasses (besides me)? When it comes to recommending wines, I need to figure out the best way to handle situations like this. Grade of D+ (67-69 pts). However, if you desire to achieve my level of bubble-dorkhood wait a day and serve this in a white wine glass, I think you will get a C/C+ experience (74-77 pts).   Find this wine

I’ve been waiting to try the 1998 E. Barnaut Champagne since placing an order for it sometime in the fall of 2006. It finally arrived in my neck of the woods and I gladly took my delivery home the same day it arrived. I fell in love with the 1996 on release only to see it turn into a strange yucky animal over the last 1.5 years. I hope the 1996 is only in a strange state, but my gut tells me that the truth lies elsewhere. Outside of the Cuvee Edmond, other E. Barnaut bottlings have been very inconsistent lately. Inconsistent enough to make me wonder if hygiene is a problem at the winery or there are major problems with transport or local storage. Despite this, only the juice can do the talking so a bottle of the 1998 was popped.

1998 E. Barnaut Millesime Brut
(50% Chardonnay, 50% Pinot Noir; Bouzy Grand Cru; Fermented in steel; Malolactic Fermentation; Disgorged 2006; $40-55 US)
A big mousse gives way to a very open and fragrant nose that kicks up aromas of spicy peaches, pears, biscuits, and a healthy dose of chalk. Normally I’m not a big fan of upfront chalk, but this wine balances it out well with the other aromas and in the end the chalk adds to the wine. The flavors in this wine are just as big as the nose as yeasty, slightly spicy biscuits and racy citrus lead a band made up of apples, pears, and sherry flavored chalk. This is one heck of a flavorful wine and has many similarities to a young Bollinger Grande Année, only it is a couple of Jackson’s less expensive.

This is a tremendous wine and really busts out of the box when you give it an hour or two to breathe and warm up. While it is a completely different flavor expression than the 1996, it is just as good when young. I hope the bottle variation, quality, or “whatever the heck it is” problems at E. Barnaut have been solved because I am once again going out on a limb and scoring this wine high with excellent potential. Just be wary that past cuvees have also been this good with this much promise on release and then laid a big smelly goose egg over time. Grade of Low A- (89-91 pts) with A- potential (90-92 pts).  Find this wine

Sometimes a night just calls for slummin’ (or my wife yells at me that I am dead if I open anything more than $10), but when it comes to slummin’, Cristalino is tops in my book. For $5, all three of their cuvees are great buys. I will admit to being a Cristalino drinker and a proud one at that. Yes, there is plenty of bubbly that is better out there, but at $5? I don’t think so. Even at $10-$12, this puts up a good fight. My favorite has normally been the Cristalino Rosé with the Cristalino Brut and Extra Dry a small notch behind, but not on this night.

NV Jaume Serra Cristalino Rosé
(60% Pinot Nior, 40% Trepat; Penedes, Spain; Methode Tradicional; 18-24 months aging on the lees; Dosage 15 g/L; Disgorged January 2007 $5-8 US)
Soft cherry red/pink in the glass and I cannot deny that this is rather appealing to look at. Normally, I find Cristalino Rosé to be a good value, but nothing more than that. However, this time this smells rather good too. A hefty nose of soft cherries, red grapefruit, and a few horse aromas engulf me. I didn’t think the horsiness was that bad, but my wife thought the dog had gone to the bathroom in the house so I’m not sure you brett haters would have liked this particular bottle. I’ve never noticed this level of brett in Cristalino Rosé before so I was interested in how this would respond with some time to breathe. Unfortunately, time was not its friend. Within an hour the nose had developed a rather appealing cherry citrus character, but it was completely hidden by a now even greater amount of horse droppings. Warmth, however, did seem to change the wine as it got rid of the horse and replaced it with plastic.

After a nose like that, I didn’t know what to expect. What I ended up finding was a bland acidity with some cherry and Catholic communion wafer flavors. The finish is rather short, but it is clean with a creamy mineral and paper citrus note. Strange as it sounds, the finish wasn’t that bad (especially compared to the rest of the wine). I have had enjoyable bottles of Cristalino Rosé, but this wasn’t one of them. Then again I have spent 10-15 times as much on bottles that were just as bad or worse. I know bottle variation is high on these high volume, low price sparklers, but based on my experience the Rosé seems to be especially susceptible to wide swings in quality. Grade of C- (70-72 pts) for this bottle, but I think it was slightly flawed. I have had bottles of this that have been as high as a low B- (79-81 pts) in the past.  Find this wine

Completely out of the blue, but does anyone else know of a Cava that uses as much Trepat in the blend (or even any Trepat in the blend) as the Cristalino Rosé?

NV Jaume Serra Cristalino Brut
(Macabeo 50%, Xarel-lo 15%, Parellada 35%; Penedes, Spain; Methode Tradicional; 18-24 months aging on the lees; Dosage 9 g/L; Disgorged January 2007; $5-8 US)
A bright golden yellow color leads into a heavy and somewhat earthy, amylic fluffy gumdrop or Carefree bubblegum nose that is a trademark of Cava. Notes of peach, fresh linen, light citrus, and cinnamon also enter into the equation. That palate is simple, but it does its job. It is light and fresh and leaves your mouth tingling as it gives you a dollop of cream, linens laundered in citrus detergent, and a bitter mineral note. The finish is short and shows some quickly dried up cream notes. Nothing offensive and nothing to write home about, but at $5, it is a buy in my book. Good bubbly for the price. Grade of C+ (77-79 pts).  Find this wine

NV Jaume Serra Cristalino Extra Dry
(Macabeo 50%, Xarel-lo 15%, Parellada 35%; Penedes, Spain; Methode Tradicional; 18-24 months aging on the lees; Disgorged January 2007; $5-8 US)
The nose is not as sweet as my last bottle with only touches of powder sugar. What I really like is the clean citrus and pear character that is clearly defined underneath the sweetness. Flavors of slightly bitter citrus, fluffy cotton candy, yellow apples, and yellow pears lead into a short and clean finish kissed by candied orange notes. As with the Brut above, this is nothing to write home about, but quite enjoyable while being light on the pocket book. Grade of C+ (77-79 pts).  Find this wine

Overall, as I mentioned above, these bottles are a high volume product and do see a good deal of bottle variation. I gave specific bottle ratings above, but in general I would give these wines a greater range. For the Brut and Extra Dry, I think you can expect a C/C+ (75-80 pts) wine. For the Rosé, the range is a bit wider and you can expect a C to B- (73-81 pts) experience. Regardless of the score, these are excellent values and Jaume Serra should be commended for putting out such good quality sparkling wines at such a low price. It is a true sign of a nice wine when I can drink a bottle over and over again and not get sick of it. I’ve been drinking Cristalino for years and I’m still not sick of it.

I must also commend Cristalino for using the Mytik Diamant Cork. I don’t have any studies at hand that show that this cork is better than a traditional cork, but I believe that it shows great promise in eliminating TCA and many general sparkling wine cork failures. You can learn more about the Mytik Diamant here. Now, if Cristalino can put this type of closure on a $5 wine, no one can give me an excuse for why they aren’t trying to improve their closure quality. But, then again, there is always the duo of wines below…

Since I am always a sucker for a cheap bottle of bubbly that I have never tried before, I decided to pick up the Henri Maire Finette Blanc de Blancs Brut (100% chardonnay; Jura, France) and Henri Maire Finette Demi-Sec Rosé (no clue on the grapes; Jura, France). They were $5 each and showed just how great a deal Cristalino is. I bought two of each cuvee (each bottle from a different case) and all four of them suffered from cork problems. They wines weren’t corked, but the corks did not perform their job. Two of the bottles had no sparkle and contained grossly deformed corks that were soaked all the way up the cork neck. The other two bottles had a tiny bit of sparkle to them and more disfigured corks.

Now, when I say deformed/disfigured, I want you to picture a preschooler given the task of creating a Champagne cork by gluing various pieces of cork together. Now look at their creation as perfection because the corks in the Finette bottles were so horrible that they would make the preschooler’s cork look like perfection. I have never seen such abysmal quality control. I wish I could blame the importer/distributor/store, but the disfigured corks show that blame should rest with the winery.


Now I can already hear the yells of, “But it was only $5.”  So what, I say. After all, Cristalino is only $5 and is continuing to make investments into high quality as shown by their Mytik Diamant cork usage. Price cannot be used as an excuse here.

I didn’t get a chance to taste the wines as they were meant to be so I can’t rate them. What I will say is that the quality control showed by Henri Maire doesn’t leave me thrilled (I have had cork and wine quality problems with bottles of Henri Maire’s Vin Fou as well) and would prevent me from recommending the wines even if they were good. For now, these get a no-score with an asterisk that reads that they are a failure due to poor quality control. Shape up your wines Henri Maire or ship out!

How I long for the good ol’ days when no one cared about Philipponnat’s Clos des Goisses. It has always been a first growth of Champagne, but it was unheralded for so long that I always took access to older vintages of it for granted. Well, the last 3-5 years have seen all of that change and now one of my favorites has hit the big time with platinum records and groupies to show. Lucky for me, I was able to dive into a couple oldies, but oh so goodies.

For those of you not familiar with Clos des Goisses, it is the tete de cuvee (top wine) of Philipponnat. It is a also a rare single vineyard Champagne. The Clos des Goisses vineyard is located in the Premier Cru of Mareuil-sur-Ay (shows why you can’t always pay attention to Cru status). If you look at the terroir of this wine, it is quite unique as the 5 ½ hectacres planted to both Pinot Noir (70%) and Chardonnay (30%) experience a climate that is unlike not only the rest of Mareuil-sur-Ay, but the rest of Champagne as well. There is a very steep south slope that fully ripens even in the worst of years (and can fry in the hot ones) and a more gentle eastern slope that provide grapes that ripen more consistently with the rest of Champagne. This allows Philipponnat to make good wines in both good and bad vintages. It also shows off the winemaking skills of the team as each vintage requires a different mix of the super-ripe southern and more gentle eastern fruit.

1975 Philipponnat Clos des Goisses
(30% Chardonnay, 70% Pinot Noir; Single vineyard in Mareuil-sur-Ay; $225-325 US)
A soft and gentle mousse rolls up in the glass and matches the golden and slightly orange color perfectly. It is showing its age, but also still saying that it has some fight left in it. As for the nose, oh man, it is gorgeous. Aromas of candied orange, toasted butterscotch crumpets, tangerine, and sherried pears fill the air. The palate isn’t a let down either as I would swear that I was eating a baked hard biscuit topped with melting sweet cream and laced with tropical fruit and caramel coated nuts.

This wine is just plain gorgeous. I have had a few tired bottles (from poor storage) over the last few years, but this bad boy was kicking it up. Just go buy Clos des Goisses from any vintage while it is still reasonably priced. It is truly a gem and not so easy to find as production varies between only 3500 and 30,000 bottles each vintage. Grade of Solid A (94-95 pts).  Find this wine

1980 Philipponnat Clos des Goisses
(30% Chardonnay, 70% Pinot Noir; Single vineyard in Mareuil-sur-Ay; $175-250 US)
After tasting the 1975, the 1980 was a step down. That said, I would take this “step down” any day, any time. Oddly, this showed both more mature and more youthful notes than the 1975. It was livelier in the glass and the nose had wonderful hints of dried apricots and concentrated orange mixed with dark mocha. The palate followed this same trend as orange, tangerine, dried peach, mocha hard biscuits, and coffee made for a spunky mature profile that seemed at or near its peak. The finish was the only bump in the road as thin and slightly bitter orange, chocolate, and peach biscuit notes seemed to be trying, but not quite doing.

1980 was not the greatest vintage, but this is a great bottle and along with the 1980 Dom Perignon out of Magnum (the 1980 Dom Magnums are much better than the 750 mL original and late disgorged bottles) is my pick for top wine of the vintage. Overall, this showed a bit more fruit than the Dom while the Dom has more dark coffee and chocolate notes.

After writing the above, I looked up what Richard Juhlin thought of this wine and he too compared it to the 1980 Dom Perignon. Always makes me chuckle when things like this happen. Grade of High A- (91-93 pts).  Find this wine

I’ll close out by mentioning that I had another bottle of NV Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label last week. This one was disgorged in July-August of 2006 and was not only younger, but also better than any of the regular 750 mL bottles that I tasted in my Yellow Label review. Right from the cork pop, the bottle showed a nice creamy biscuit and pear aspect that was fruit forward and appealing. Still a tad dirty, but not green at all. Overall, a pleasant surprise and enough to scrape in with a Low B- (80-81 pts).  Find this wine

Cheers!

Brad Baker

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