Rugby-loving winemakers are looking for an excuse to be in New Zealand for the 2011 World Cup. Francois Hautekeur, winemaker at Veuve Clicquot, is a French rugby nut and would love to be at the France vs. All Blacks match in September. So, if anyone at LVMH is reading, I think a reconnaissance mission to Clicquot’s New Zealand stablemate Cloudy Bay is in order.
Hautekeur was in Auckland last night running an ‘Art of Blending’ masterclass but he was a year too early for rugby’s flagship tournament.
Why the Art of Blending? At Veuve Cliquot, there are 850 tanks filled with potential wines that make up the final blend of its non-vintage yellow label. That’s a lot of tanks. We tried six samples and, quite frankly, that was enough to have you reaching for the Rennies thanks to the eyewatering acids.
This was the first time its base wines were available to taste in New Zealand. “It is rare that the base wines leave the winery,†admitted Hautekeur.
The idea of tasting base wines is to understand what a still Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier taste like before they are blended together and go through the secondary fermentation in bottle which creates the bubbles. The fermentation in bottle also adds an extra 1% alcohol, apparently. I hadn’t heard this one before but every day’s a school day.
So, what do they all bring? The Pinot Noir gives flesh and volume to a Champagne. The ‘09 example from Verzy was closed at the moment but had pear, citrus and stoney notes. But it’s all about the weight and texture it gives to the final blend, which is usually around 50-57% in the Yellow Label NV.
Chardonnay provides “backboneâ€. What does this mean? It’s not as fleshy as Pinot Noir and gives a cleansing citrus note on the tongue. We tried the 09 Chardonnay from the village of Cramant and it smelled of chalk, lemons and white flowers. It was feminine with a lovely long finish. An older Chardonnay base wine from 2000 was lean and minerally with white stoned fruit and butterscotch.
The Pinot Meunier is “hyper aromaticâ€, full of fruit from pineapple and pear drops to red cherry and stoned fruit. It lacks length, however and is usually a minor part of the blend.
More on Champagne in my next blog.
