Posts Tagged ‘Sparklers’
Tasting champagnes with Pascal Doquet (3/4)
Champagne, Grand Cru, Blanc de Blancs, Diapason, Pascal Doquet ($73.25, 12946063)
100% Chardonnay from organically farmed old vines in vineyards in Le Mesnil-sur-Oger (poor clay over chalk). A blend of wines from the 2006 (84%) and 2005 (16%) vintages. Vinified in a enamelled stainless steel tanks (80%) and small, neutral oak barrels (20%). Fermented with indigenous yeasts. Aged 96 months on lattes. Dosage (with rectified grape must): 4.5 g/l. Disgorged in April 2015. Reducing sugar: 5.4 g/l. 12.5% ABV. Quebec agent: oenopole.
A shade golder than the other wines in the tasting. Engaging nose of lees, yeast and subdued white fruit faintly overtoned with white spice and powdered ginger. Dry yet richer than its predecessors. The soft bubbles, sleek acidity and ideal extract confer a beguiling texture. Chalky minerals and subtle, slightly browning fruit last well into the slow-fade finish with its lingering lemon and flint notes. Balanced and complete. Suggesting resonance and harmony, the cuvée name is most appropriate. (Buy again? Yes.)
Tasting champagnes with Pascal Doquet (2/4)
Champagne, Brut, Blanc de Blancs, Horizon, Pascal Doquet ($55.00, 11528046)
100% Chardonnay from organically farmed vines rooted in old chalk and grey marl clay in vineyards in Bassuet and Bassu. A blend of wines from the 2011 and 2010 vintages (two-thirds and one-third respectively). Fermented with indigenous yeasts in enamelled stainless steel tanks. Matured on the lees for four to five months. Bottled unfiltered. Aged 30 months on lattes (the bottles are stacked on their sides with thin strips of wood – think laths – laid between them to stabilize the stacks and minimize damage in the event a bottle explodes). Dosage was with rectified concentrated must. Disgorged in September 2015. Reducing sugar: 7.0 g/l. 12.5% ABV. Also available in magnums ($119.00/1.5 L, 11787304). Quebec agent: oenopole.
Pale straw with green and gold glints, a very fine bead and not much foam. Appealing nose of cookie dough, chalk, faint lemon and a hint of honey. Clean and dry in the mouth, the flavours tending to apple and pear. Acidity and extract are in ideal proportion. There’s fair depth and complexity and a marked mineral component, especially on the long, dry finish. (Buy again? Sure.)
Champagne, Premier Cru, Blanc de Blancs, Brut Nature, Arpège, Pascal Doquet ($64.25, 12024253)
100% Chardonnay from organically farmed vines in vineyards in Vertus (deep clay over chalk), Villeneuve (clayey topsoil over chalk) and Mont-Aimé (sand and chalk). A blend of wines from the 2010 and 2011 vintages (62% and 38% respectively). Fermented and matured on the lees in tanks for four to five months with occasional stirring. Transferred to oak barrels (45%) and stainless steel tanks (55%) for an additional 11 months before bottling. Aged 30 months on lattes. Undosed. Disgorged in February 2016. Reducing sugar: 1.5 g/l. 12.5% ABV. Quebec agent: oenopole.
Similar in appearance to the Horizon, though with a slightly greener cast. Complex, evolving nose: citrusy, malic and leesy gaining straw/hay, seashell and preserved lemon notes as the wine breaths. Less fruity and more minerally than its flightmate. Bone dry from start to finish. Sustained but not sharp acidity. Long, rainwatery finish with lingering chalk, flint, lemon and seashells. Lovely. (Buy again? Yes.)
Tasting champagnes with Pascal Doquet (1/4)
In the run-up to the holidays, oenopole invited a number of wine critics, journalists, restaurateurs, sommeliers and bloggers, including me, to a tasting of champagnes from the house of Doquet. The tasting was led by the soft-spoken if loquacious owner-winemaker Pascal Doquet.
Based in Vertus, Pascal has been a winemaker since 1982. After taking the helm of the family estate (Doquet-Jeanmarie at the time), he bought out his sisters’ shares in the estate and created – with his wife Laure – Champagne Pascal Doquet in 2004. Comprising a little under nine hectares of vines, the estate has been certified organic since 2007. Pascal describes his approach to wine-growing as sustainable. The life of the soil is a primary concern, as evidenced by his careful application of homemade compost, avoidance of chemical weed-killers, use of lightweight straddle tractors and manual working of the topsoil around the vine rows.
In the cellar, pressing – always with a pneumatic press – is adapted to the characteristics of each vintage. Only the juice from the first two pressings is used. Fermentation is with indigenous yeasts. After alcoholic and malolactic fermentation, the wines are matured on their lees for, on average, four or five months, then naturally clarified and sometimes lightly filtered before bottling, which happens in spring for the non-vintage cuvées and in late summer or early fall for the vintage cuvées. Dosage is done with concentrated grape must, which Pascal feels is closer to the grape’s natural sugar. The wines tend to be shipped six to 12 months after disgorging.
The tasting began with the house’s rosé.
Champagne, Rosé, Brut, Premiers crus de la Côte des blancs, Pascal Doquet ($66.75, 12024296)
A blend of Chardonnay (85%) and Pinot Noir (15%) from vineyards around the village of Vertus. The soil is mostly deep clay over chalk. The grapes are entirely destemmed. The colour comes from briefly macerating the juice on the skins. Fermented with indigenous yeasts in stainless steel tanks. Matured 12 months on the lees in large barrels and 24 months in the bottle. Unfiltered. Disgorged in February 2014. Dosage was 6 or 7 g/l, which Pascal intends to lower to 5 g/l in the future. Reducing sugar: 7 g/l. 12.5% ABV. Quebec agent: oenopole.
Salmon-orange with a fine bead and head. Yeasty nose of red berries, hard candies and hints of chalk and resinous herbs. In the mouth, it’s fruity yet delicate, ripe-sweet yet fundamentally dry. The effervescence is soft and structuring. Bright acidity swells on the mid-palate. Turns even direr on the long finish with its lingering fruit and mineral flavours. Not a throat-grabber but elegant, refreshing and delicious. (Buy? Yes.)
Start off?
Montlouis sur Loire, Brut Nature, François Chidaine ($29.35, 11537049)
100% Chenin Blanc from biodynamically farmed vines between 20 and 50 years old. Manually harvested in several passes. The grapes are pneumatically pressed. Alcoholic fermentation with indigenous yeasts takes place in 600-litre demi-muids and can last up to six months. Malolactic fermentation is usually avoided. Sparkled using the traditional method. Undosed. The bottles spend 12 months on lattes. Reducing sugar: 8.2 g/l. 12% ABV. Quebec agent: Le Maître de Chai.
The cork emerges easily and without the expected pop. No foam and only a little fizz are to be seen in the glasses. The nose is complex with notes of sweat, wax, distant fields, citrus and oxidized pear. A sip shows the wine to be barely effervescent and what bubbles there are tiny and tickling. The low level of fizz combines with the extract, smooth acidity and touch of residual sugar to convey an impression of roundness. Quince and pear flavours tinged by browning dominate the palate, while the mineral substrate and a hint of white spice come to the fore on the long finish. Probably a defective bottle but still engaging and delicious. (Buy again? Yes, to see if ours was off or to re-experience it if it wasn’t.)
MWG October 27, 2016, tasting: flight 1 of 7
Data-free sparklers
Prince Edward County 2011, Blanc de blancs, Culmination, Traditional Method, Lighthall Vineyards ($35.00 at the winery)
Good luck finding technical information about this wine; the winery appears to think only the wines currently available for purchase online deserve mention. 100% Chardonnay. May have been fermented in French oak barrels. May have been matured on the lees in French oak barrels. 12% ABV.
Subdued nose: lemon, “boxwood,” yeast, yellow apple, puff pastry. Assertively fizzy (“almost harsh the bubbles”) but otherwise light, even ethereal. Clean, dry, brightly acidic with just enough fruit and a long tart finish. (Buy again? Sure.)
Canada 2011, Blanc de noirs, À la volée, The Old Third (c. $45.00 at the winery a few years ago)
No mention of this wine is made on the winery’s website. 100% Pinot Noir from the estate’s Prince Edward County vineyard. May have spent 18 months to three years on the lees. May have been manually riddled and disgorged. May be undosed. 12.5% ABV.
Brioche, almond croissant, yellow apple, pear and an oxidized note that one taster termed “rancio.” Rich but not heavy. Softly effervescent with fine bubbles. Rounder, smoother, deeper and better balanced than the Lighthall – technically speaking the better of the two wines – but, oddly, not more interesting. Still, one of the few New World sparklers that can stand comparison with champagne. (Buy again? Sure.)
MWG August 12th tasting: flight 2 of 8
Back in 2012, I wrote:
Trying to find technical information on PEC wines is an exercise in frustration. Want to know if a wine was aged in barrels, what the barrels were made from, who they were made by, what percentage was new? Curious about what grapes in what proportion went into the wine? Wondering what kind of agricultural practices are used? Whether a wine is filtered, fined or sulphured? You probably won’t find many if any answers to those and other technical questions on the winery’s website. Yes, some of these are tiny operations. But others aren’t (looking at you, Norman Hardie). And anyway, winemakers, you have this information. It can be typed up in five minutes. It doesn’t have to be nicely presented; the people interested in it don’t give a damn about formatting. What’s important is that it be available. As things stand now, we’re forced to scour the Web for reviews and reports on winery visits, and even when we find information on blogs or in articles, it’s incomplete and often contradictory.
How discouraging to see the situation remains unchanged.
Impeccable
Vouvray 2013, Brut, Domaine Vincent Carême ($26.05, 11633591)
100% Chenin Blanc from organically farmed vines. Manually harvested. Alcoholic fermentation took place in temperature-controlled fibre vats and was stopped when 28 g/l of sugar remained; in-bottle fermentation of that residual sugar created the effervescence. Reducing sugar: 4.7 g/l. 13% ABV. Quebec agent: Rézin.
Dusty minerals, pear, a little peach and an earthy, maybe even cheesy note. Fine effervescence. In the mouth, it’s dry, round, quite complex and delightfully fresh. The fruit – here tending to apple and lemon – and minerals intertwine with a thread of bitterness and are lit up by crisp-verging-on-trenchant acidity. Long, clean finish. Impeccable. (Buy again? Definitely.)
MWG July 15th tasting: flight 5 of 8
Limoux times two
Crémant de Limoux 2013, Expression, Antech ($20.60, 10666084)
Chardonnay (60%), Chenin Blanc (20%) and Mauzac (20%) from vines rooted in argilo-calcerous soil. Manually harvested. After pressing, the musts are chilled and clarified by settling, then transferred to stainless steel fermentation vessels. First fermentation lasts 15 to 21 days. The wine is then clarified by fining and sparkled using the traditional method. Spends at least 18 months on the lees in the bottle before disgorging. Reducing sugar: 8.1 g/l (for the 2014). 12% ABV. Quebec agent: AOC.
Cookie dough, chalk and lemon. Fine and persistent effervescence. Clean and dry on the palate, the fruit tending to apple, with good acidity and a dusting of minerals. A hint of bitterness creeps in on the faintly honeyed finish. It’s a bit anonymous – more cava- than champagne-like – but certainly drinkable. (Buy again? Maybe.)
Crémant de Limoux 2013, Brut, Clos des Demoiselles, J. Laurens ($23.90, 10498973)
Chardonnay (60%), Chenin Blanc (30%) and Pinot Noir (10%). The varieties are manually harvested and vinified separately. First fermentation takes place in stainless steel tanks. The wine is then bottled with added yeast for second fermentation, matured on the lees for 15 months and disgorged, all per the traditional method. Reducing sugar: 12 g/l. 12% ABV. Quebec agent: Sélections Oeno.
Cookie dough again, this time with marzipan, “matches” and a sour edge. Gained faint notes of “slightly rotting tropical fruit” and candied apple. Richer, more complex and less cava-like than the Antech, with softer, rounder bubbles. The fruit – pear and a little citrus – is upfront but the wine comes across as dry, due in part to the lively acidity. Chalky minerals thread through the mid-palate and into the long finish. Fresh, balanced and satisfying. The usually shaped bottle is quite slippery. (Buy again? Sure.)
The Antech was supposed to be the newly arrived 2014 and I didn’t notice that it wasn’t till unveiling the bottle at the tasting. The vintage information is in the SAQ’s product database yet, perversely, SAQ.com doesn’t make use of it. Why the site usually lists only the latest vintage received and thus sometimes misidentifies the vintage in a given store is a mystery, a source of frustration and a major fail.
MWG April 14th tasting: flight 1 of 6
Fizzle
Crémant du Jura 2011, Délire des Lyres, Zéro, Les Chais du Vieux Bourg ($31.95, 12814221)
Based in Arlay but with additional vineyards in Poligny, L’Étoile and Château-Chalon, the four-hectare estate was founded in 2003 by former architect Ludwig Bindernagel and Nathalie Eigenschenck. All work in the vineyard is done manually. While not officially organic, the estate does not use insecticides, herbicides or chemical fertilizers and expects to obtain biodynamic certification in a few years. This traditional method, undosed sparkler is made 100% from Chardonnay grapes (per the SAQ; some claim it contains 10% Savagnin) from 30-year-old vines. The individual parcels are vinified separately. The grapes are manually harvested, pressed in a wooden press and fermented in large oak barrels. The resulting wine is given extended maturation on its lees. Added sulphur: 3 g/hl. Reducing sugar: 1.5 g/l. 12.5% ABV. Quebec agent: Ward et associés.
Attractive nose of browning pear and apple, honey, minerals and faint yeasty brioche notes. In the mouth, it’s medium-bodied, tightly wound and very dry, with very fine bubbles producing an almost prickly sensation. Tending to apple and citrus, the mineral-dusted fruit is “less rich than the nose suggests” (quoting another taster). Despite the effervescence and bracing acidity, the wine is oddly inert on the mid-palate. Fairly long with a bitter aftertaste. A second bottle tasted three weeks later was identical. (Buy again? Maybe a bottle to cellar for a year or two to see if we caught it during a dumb phase.)
Expectations around this bottle – a naturalish, no-dosage sparkler from a new-to-us but highly regarded producer in one of our favourite wine regions and represented by one of our favourite agencies – were high. Which made its lacklustre showing all the more disappointing. Not that the wine was bad. Far from it. But no one around the tables thought it represented good value when you can get, say, Baud’s Brut Sauvage for under $24 or Tissot’s basic crémant for $28 and change.
MWG March 31st tasting: flight 1 of 6
Not your ordinary champers
Something of a cult producer – they’re currently accepting no new clients – Vouette et Sorbée has been making idiosyncratic champagnes since 2001. The estate is located in the village of Buxières-sur-Arce, which is geographically, geologically and maybe even spiritually closer to Chablis than to the champagne capital of Épernay.
Champagne 2011, Cuvée Fidèle, Vouette et Sorbée ($76.73, private import, 6 bottles/case)
A blanc de noirs. 100% Pinot Noir from organically and biodynamically farmed vines rooted in Kimmeridgian marl. The manually harvested grapes are gently pressed. The free-run juice is transferred to 400-litre oak casks for fermentation (with indigenous yeasts) and maturation. Undergoes malolactic fermentation. Indigenous yeasts are used for primary and secondary fermentation. The wine is aged on its lees on lattes (stacked in piles with small pieces of wood inserted between the bottles to prevent them from moving) and riddled on racks. This is nearly all 2011 except for a dollop of reserve wines. Sulphur dioxide is added to the incoming grapes but not at bottling. 12% ABV. Quebec agent: Rézin.
Extremely complex nose: miso, black pepper, “apples on the floor of the orchard” (quoting another taster), roasted white meat, barley sugar and more as the wine breathes. Dry and intense on the palate. The effervescence is light and fine but also very insistent. The remarkably pure fruit tends to red berries and apples, is grounded in chalky minerals and coloured by spice and umami notes. Lively acidity adds tension that relaxes only on the long finish with its lingering spice and brioche flavours. Not so much a vin plaisir as a vin de contemplation and quite unlike any other champagne I’ve tasted. Next time I’ll carafe it a couple of hours before serving. (Buy again? Yes.)
Champagne 2012, Saignée de Sorbée, Vouette et Sorbée ($124.85, private import, 6 bottles/case)
A rosé champagne. 100% Pinot Noir from organically and biodyamically farmed vines averaging 22 years old. More than three-quarters of the vines are planted on Kimmeridgian hillsides, the remainder in fragmented Portlandian limestone. Manually harvested. Made using the saignée method with extended carbonic maceration. Vinified in 400-litre oak casks. Undergoes malolactic fermentation. Indigenous yeasts are used for primary and secondary fermentation. The wine is aged on its lees on lattes and riddled on racks. Sulphur dioxide is added only to the incoming grapes. 12% ABV. Quebec agent: Rézin.
Strawberry carpels, miso, cooked rhubarb, pastry cream, apple peel and more. In the piehole, the wine is weighty but not heavy, textured by a fine, soft bead and mouth-watering acidity. Once again the fruit is as savoury as sweet and intertwined with minerals. Pink grapefruit, including the pith, is joined by spice and umami notes on the long finish. Continues evolving in the glass; I suspect this, too, would benefit from an hour or two in the carafe. Complex and fascinating, a rosé to contend with. (Buy again? When my boat comes in…)
These showed much better than the 2007s that the group tasted in December 2010. Or maybe our palates have evolved. In fact, at one point during the tasting, I found myself wondering whether the adage about vin jaune didn’t also apply here: you don’t appreciate it until your third encounter.
MWG March 12th tasting: flight 4 of 7
California Sparklin’
In late February, Simon Thibaudeau, now with Le Marchand de Vin, led the group in an enjoyable overview of the agency’s portfolio. The wines were served double-blind to everyone but Simon. As is our wont, we started with a sparkler.
Anderson Valley 2007, Brut, L’Ermitage, Roederer Estate ($68.25, 11682810)
A Chadonnay (52%) and Pinot Noir (48%) from estate-grown grapes, this tête de cuvée is made only in exceptional years and only from free-run and first-press juice. Vinified using the traditional method. Dosage is done with reserve wine from the 2004 and 2005 vintages that was aged five years in French oak casks; the dosage accounts for 4% of the final wine. Reducing sugar: 13 g/l. 12% ABV. Quebec agent: Le Marchand de Vin.
Yeasty, champagne-like nose of sour lemon, stone fruit, browning apple, “white miso” (as per another taster) and a whiff a sea spray. Richly textured and mouth-filling. The ripe fruit comes with a touch of honey though the wine is quite dry. A fine, persistent effervescence combines with the bright acidity to give the wine a welcome bit of bite, while a sourish undercurrent adds intrigue. Broad and very long. Drinking double-blind, I first thought this was Californian but finally guessed it was a very ripe champagne. In hindsight, the solar fruit and downplayed minerality should have tipped me that it wasn’t – though qualitatively, it’s on a champagne level. That said, as with so many California wines, the price seems high in comparison to its European counterparts. (Buy again? Setting aside QPR considerations, yes.)
MWG February 26th tasting: flight 1 of 7
Brett happens 