Michael Fridjhon: October 2007
Author:
Michael Fridjhon
Published: 07 Nov 07
Wine critic and writer Michael Fridjhon recalls the more memorable wines he has drunk.The Champenoises lead a charmed life: their ancestors so successfully marketed
the supremacy of an appellation unable in most vintages fully to ripen its grapes
that they have now established the curious confection we know as Champagne as
one of the great beverages of the world. Thin, acidic, petillant wines from
almost anywhere else are treated contemptuously. Champagne, on the other hand,
is a virtue made of necessity. The region now sells more fizz, for more money,
than any other vinous generic. Along the way, its great pioneers modified the
recipe. They transformed the natural but erratic bubble of freshly fermented
light white wine into a permanently integrated mousse made more complex by the
yeast autolysis derived during the second fermentation in the bottle.
By and large, those born to the world of great bubbly live out their lives in a happy haze. When I first began visiting the region more than 30 years ago I was shocked (but not entirely distressed) to discover that the Houses did not provide a spittoon in the tasting area. If you arrived for a meeting even quite early in the morning the question "what will you drink?" never seemed to apply to tea, coffee or mineral water but rather meant "vintage, non-vintage or Rosé".
The lifestyle seems to have contributed to the legendary longevity of many of the region's icon figures. A few years ago Veuve Clicquot hosted a dinner at which their current chef des caves Jacques Peters celebrated the achievements of his mentors and predecessors. Present for the occasion were the men who had moulded the style of the house for some 70 years. The oldest - who began working at Clicquot round about the time of the First World War - had in turn been trained by his father who had been chef des caves in the 19th century.
When I first worked with the Lanson family (when the Lansons still owned the brand that bears their name), Victor Lanson was just beginning his retirement - having estimated that in his lifetime he had consumed some 70 000 bottles of Champagne. His son, Jean-Baptiste, told me that his grandfather - in his youth - hunted with a man who had been a page boy at the court of Louis 16th.
In those days Lanson was run with an authenticity and dedication which made no concession to the growing vogue for prestige cuvées. The non-vintage wine went into the Black Label bottle while the Vintage (Red Label) was treated as a super-premium, closed under natural (not crown) cork for the second fermentation. The Langham Hotel in Johannesburg seemed to consider it better than Krug: R8.75 per bottle compared with Krug Private Cuvée at around R6.
While the 1969 and 1971 Red Labels were amongst the best Champagnes I have ever tasted, I remember a wine, sampled at much the same time, which was in a league entirely of its own. The late B.J. Lankwarden enjoyed a brief stint as the CEO of the Gilbeys-owned company which imported Bollinger. One day he invited me to taste a bottle from his tiny allocation of pre-phylloxera Vieilles Vignes Francaises. Produced from three minuscule blocks of vines which survived ungrafted from the late 19th century, the wine had the depth and concentration of sparkling Montrachet. Its extraordinary quality is reinforced by its rarity. Ghislain de Montgolfier, President of Bollinger and the great-great-grandson of Jacques Bollinger, told me last year that his children - now in their 20s and 30s - have yet to taste a bottle.<
br />
By and large, those born to the world of great bubbly live out their lives in a happy haze. When I first began visiting the region more than 30 years ago I was shocked (but not entirely distressed) to discover that the Houses did not provide a spittoon in the tasting area. If you arrived for a meeting even quite early in the morning the question "what will you drink?" never seemed to apply to tea, coffee or mineral water but rather meant "vintage, non-vintage or Rosé".
The lifestyle seems to have contributed to the legendary longevity of many of the region's icon figures. A few years ago Veuve Clicquot hosted a dinner at which their current chef des caves Jacques Peters celebrated the achievements of his mentors and predecessors. Present for the occasion were the men who had moulded the style of the house for some 70 years. The oldest - who began working at Clicquot round about the time of the First World War - had in turn been trained by his father who had been chef des caves in the 19th century.
When I first worked with the Lanson family (when the Lansons still owned the brand that bears their name), Victor Lanson was just beginning his retirement - having estimated that in his lifetime he had consumed some 70 000 bottles of Champagne. His son, Jean-Baptiste, told me that his grandfather - in his youth - hunted with a man who had been a page boy at the court of Louis 16th.
In those days Lanson was run with an authenticity and dedication which made no concession to the growing vogue for prestige cuvées. The non-vintage wine went into the Black Label bottle while the Vintage (Red Label) was treated as a super-premium, closed under natural (not crown) cork for the second fermentation. The Langham Hotel in Johannesburg seemed to consider it better than Krug: R8.75 per bottle compared with Krug Private Cuvée at around R6.
While the 1969 and 1971 Red Labels were amongst the best Champagnes I have ever tasted, I remember a wine, sampled at much the same time, which was in a league entirely of its own. The late B.J. Lankwarden enjoyed a brief stint as the CEO of the Gilbeys-owned company which imported Bollinger. One day he invited me to taste a bottle from his tiny allocation of pre-phylloxera Vieilles Vignes Francaises. Produced from three minuscule blocks of vines which survived ungrafted from the late 19th century, the wine had the depth and concentration of sparkling Montrachet. Its extraordinary quality is reinforced by its rarity. Ghislain de Montgolfier, President of Bollinger and the great-great-grandson of Jacques Bollinger, told me last year that his children - now in their 20s and 30s - have yet to taste a bottle.<
