Sunday February 22, 2009
A miracle of a wine
By ELIZABETH TAI
In a year that was disastrous for most vinters, Moët et Chandon produced one of its most delectable champagnes ever.
MANY European wine-makers remember 2003 with a shudder.
In August of that year, Europe suffered its hottest summer in 500 years, with temperatures soaring as high as 49°C. According to the Earth Policy Institute, about 52,000 people perished in the heat wave.
Chef de Cave Benoit Gouez in the cellars of Moet et Chandon. Delicate grape vines didn’t fare well either. The heat wave was the final straw for wine-makers who had already suffered a year of calamities. In early spring, crops endured severe frosts. Then spring arrived far too early – in March – causing the grapes to bud too early as well.
Then in early April, temperatures dipped to as low as -11°C. It was a disaster: 13,000ha of vineyards were destroyed. Then in May and June, it hailed eight times, decimating 650ha of vines that managed to survive the frost.
Because of the reduced yield and the heat wave, the grapes matured radically fast. As a result, the harvest came very early (beginning from Aug 18), the earliest for Champagne, France – where the vineyards of the venerated Moët et Chandon are based – in 181 years!
According to Los Angeles Times’ Daily Dish blog, many champagne houses swallowed their losses, took whatever yield they had (which was not much) and blended it into multi-vintage wines.
But Moët et Chandon’s Chef de Cave Benoit Gouez went the other way. He decided to produce a vintage instead! He calls it transforming “a catastrophe into a miracle”.
“Exceptional conditions (provided) the opportunity to create an equally exceptional Grand Vintage. A unique champagne with a complex, mature, assertive personality,” says Gouez, 38, in a press release.
Creating a vintage
Drinking vintage champagne is like drinking the weather, because the flavour of the grapes are so greatly influenced by weather conditions.
Vintage wine is made from grapes entirely or primarily grown and harvested from one specific year. It also implies that the harvest was exceptional.
Workers at the winepress. Interestingly, it was Moët et Chandon that invented the concept of vintage champagne when the House produced its first in 1842.
(Moët et Chandon was also the first to print the words “dry” and “sec” (French for dry, as opposed to sweet) on their bottle lables – in 1856. Ever the consummate marketer, Jean-Remy Moet, the founder’s grandson, did this because the British wanted to drink dry champagne with their meals.)
“Whilst Moët et Chandon’s non-vintage wines are ever popular, the champagne house also offers vintage champagnes. They are known as Grand Vintages and are distinguished by exceptional summer conditions for grape-growing, referred to as solaires,” says Edwin Soon, StarMag’s wine columnist.
And 2003 certainly had an exceptional summer!
As hard as the weather was on the grapes, it also produced an interesting crop which Gouez describes as “extraordinary” and “excessive”. The grapes had high sugar count and low acidity (as it was burnt off by the heat), but the heat also played havoc with the fermentation process. Many winemakers would try to protect the jus in such circumstances, but Gouez broke the rules and decided not to “overprotect” them instead.
“We have to work them a little differently to capture the essence of 2003,” explains Gouez in a video on the official Moët et Chandon website.
Gouez held off the “protection” for a few hours. He describes the process poetically, saying that by waiting for a few hours, it allowed the “excesses to express themselves, just like how an angry outburst relieves a temper. Once the jus had calmed down, regained its balance and asserted its potential, we were able to carefully elaborate the wine.”
Two vintages emerged from that tumultuous year: Grand Vintage 2003 (the 68th from the Maison) and the Grand Vintage Rosé 2003 (37th from the Maison).
Not just hype
As vintage wine had to be aged for three years or more before being sold, the Grand Vintage 2003 was only officially unveiled worldwide last month.
It promptly received rave reviews from wine experts. Words such as “exciting”, “powerful”, “fun”, and “intense” have been used to describe it.
But was this mere hype? Did the champagne deserve all this praise?
Moet et Chandon’s chalk cellars, which date back to 1743 when the company was founded, are located 30m below their historic headquarters in Epernay, Champagne, and stretches for 28km! People have been known to get lost in them. “Most certainly so,” says Soon, who had the chance to taste the Grand Vintage 2003 and Grand Vintage Rosé in Hong Kong six months ago.
“I tasted the Grand Vintage 2003 as one of five wines, beginning with the 2003 and ending with the 1959. It demonstrated, or more accurately, celebrated, the verve and the youthfulness of even decades-old vintage champagne.
“Importantly, it also offered a glimpse of how the recently launched 2003 vintage will show in many years from now – it will turn out to be a rare wine and quite extraordinary,” he says.
Notes and flavours
Its composition is said to be unusual.
The Grand Vintage 2003 was heavy on Pinot Meunier (43%), with Pinot Noir (29%) and Chardonnay (28%) included on a lesser scale. Incidentally, the Pinot Meunier was the grape variety that suffered the least from the heat, but was the most difficult to work with.
“Pinot Meunier contributes body and richness to a champagne blend, and only recently, producers and consumers started to realise that the grape actually brings some perfume and fruity flavours to the champagne. Still consumers often look for champagnes made from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir,” he says.
For Soon, the Grand Vintage 2003 had notes of ripe white fruits, green mangoes, citrus and bon-bon flavours on warming up.
“It is structured, forward with light bitterness and of medium texture,” he says.
The Grand Vintage Rosé 2003 is made up of Pinot Noir (48% – of which 19% is red wine), Pinot Meunier (30%) and Chardonnay (22%).
“(The Rosé) has notes of medium salmon, red berry fruit aromas with some spice and nougat with a good structure that an take on various dishes,” says Soon.
Mike Bampfield-Duggan of Wine Concept and iafrica.com describes his encounter with the Grand Vintage 2003 thus:
“The Grand Vintage 2003 was served with oolong tea smoked tuna tartare with abalone carpaccio, daikon radish, lime, green tea jelly and caviar! The many flavours of this dish complemented the mature creamy velvety flavours of the wine and it was extraordinary how well the tastes harmonised!
“On the nose one experiences wafts of vanilla, almonds with hints of apricots and poached pears. The palate explodes on entry with a mouthfilling mousse of tiny bubbles which, after settling, invites the palate to an intimate sensation of silky creamy fruit with a biscotti backdrop followed by a long elegant finish.”
Another wine connoisseur who also waxed lyrical over the 2003 is Denise O’Neal of the Chicago Sun-Times who had this to say after a tasting in June at the Trump Tower in Chicago:
“The Moët Grand Vintage 2003 is an exciting varietal with a refreshing bouquet that brings multi-levels of pleasure to the palate. The colour is magnificent with great clarity and from start to finish each sip unveils another note. Not too dry, too delicate or too robust it is the perfect blend alone as a party refresher or complementing a meal. Moët Grand Vintage 2003 is fun, exciting and was well received.”
The success of the 2003 vintage is a testament of Gouez’s mastery of his art.
Yet Gouez, who has been Moët et Chandon’s Chef de Cave (which simply means winemaker in French) since 2005, was not raised in the wine-making world. But his innate flair for making wine and 10-year experience at Moët et Chandon’s vineyards have enabled him to keep the House at the forefront of the industry.
His philosophy: “Champagne is all about sharing – it’s a rich, passion-filled world. I love to share. I love dinners with friends, good conversation, exchanging ideas and different points of view. I love to celebrate, to make every moment in life as good as it can be.”
The Moët et Chandon Grand Vintage 2003 (RM333 per 750ml bottle) and Grand Vintage Rosé 2003 (RM379 per 750ml bottle) is available at all wine speciality stores.
Related story:
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