Veuve Clicquot Tasting

Black and Yellow—A Veuve Clicquot Tasting

By Codey Foster

Just the other day Mitch, Monica, and I headed up to North Haven for a seminar/tasting with Veuve Clicquot winemaker Cyril Brun. Cyril has been with Clicquot since 2000 and has since taken over the role of Cellar Master and head winemaker.

The tasting consisted of six still base wines followed by the Brut, Rose’, 2004 Vintage, 2004 Vintage Rose’ and finally the newest release of Veuve Clicquot’s Tete de Cuvee ‘Le Grande Dame’ (2004). The wines showed brilliantly, as I knew they would, but the opportunity to taste the base wines of the NV Brut was perhaps the most enlightening component of the tasting.

For those of you unfamiliar, there are 3 major component grapes to Champagne; Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, and Chardonnay. Accessory grapes include Pinot Blanc, Arbanne, and Petit Meslier, although these are hardly ever used and not used by Clicquot.

For the component tasting Cyril had brought along with him still examples of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier. Individually these wines were quite lean, austere, and acidic although to taste them as still wines made it exceptionally clear what each grape contributes to the blend. The Pinot Meunier was the softest and plushest with the most obvious red fruit and a touch of roundness. The Pinot Noir was structured and taught contributing both acidity and more subtle red fruits to the blend. And finally the Chardonnay was the most austere with searing acidity and well packed minerality and chalkiness. After tasting all three individually, Cyril had us blend all three into a single glass to understand how the Champagne trio interacts to create wine that is balanced and complex. The resulting wine was much more palatable than any of the three blending grapes on its own.

After cheese and pate’ to cleanse our palates, we started to taste through the Veuve Clicquot sparkling wines.

The Veuve Clicquot 2004 Vintage wines were opulent and rich, as expected. The 2004 rose’ was especially structured delivering more of a red wine quality than almost any rose’ Champagne I’ve tasted this year. I admire that in a rose’, especially when I’m paying more for the rose’ than I would the standard Vintage—although in this particular case the Veuve Clicquot Vintage Rose’ is just a few bucks more than the Vintage and I think it’s well worth it. Sometimes with Rose’ Champagnes you can pay twice the price (or more) for a Rose’ wine than you would the equivalent white version and in most cases I think it’s price gouging. I understand that rose’s cost more money to produce because in Champagne especially—Pinot is tough to fully ripen but not to the extent that a rose’, requiring just a small percentage of ripe Pinot Noir should cost twice the price of the Brut. As a result I think the Veuve Clicquot Rose’ is a nice little value, at just a few bucks more.

After the vintages we tasted the 2004 Grande Dame, which showed brightly, well packed and structured, although just a bit young. I think this is one of those Tete de cuvees that really flourishes with some age and the 2004 was still very fresh and primary. It has all of the stuffings to make a great wine, but I just don’t think its there yet. It is a fine Champagne at the moment but its true greatness won’t be revealed for another 6-10 years, I’m sure.

 After the tasting I had the chance to talk with Cyril and ask him a few personal questions. In short—when he’s not drinking Champagne, he drinks Burgundy. He does saber Champagne from time to time. His youngest kid wants to be Superman or Batman when he grows up (he’s not sure). And he thinks the Veuve Clicquot “Yellow Label” is actually orange, even though VCP keeps telling him that it is in fact yellow.

He signed a few bottles of 2004 Grand Dame for us (for the cellar of course) and after a few pictures we were on our way.