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Reserve Wines

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RESERVE WINES ARE STILL WINES FROM THE VINEYARDS OF CHAMPAGNE WHICH ARE AGED AND USED BY HOUSES TO ADD TO THE YOUNGEST ‘STILL’ WINE, WHEN BLENDING, TO PRODUCE THE BASE WINE FOR A NON-VINTAGE CHAMPAGNE, BEFORE IT UNDERGOES THE PROCESS OF SECONDARY FERMENTATION. IT SOUNDS EXTREMELY SIMPLE, BUT THESE WINES ARE CRUCIAL TO THE REGION AND THEY ARE A KEY FACTOR IN MAKING CHAMPAGNE THE WINE WE KNOW TODAY.

WORDS KEN GARGETT

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RESERVE WINES ARE IMPORTANT IN maintaining consistency of the non-vintage wine of a House, enabling them to preserve the House style. Every House will have its own manner of storing these wines, of the quantities they keep and the percentages used. It is usually an area where the larger, older producers have the advantage over small growers. Keeping large stocks of reserve wines, sometimes for over a decade, is a financially draining requirement and the bigger Houses are usually much better placed to handle this.

Reserve wines were originally held back in order to overcome poor vintages. This is less necessary these days, though occasionally we still had a (shocking) 2001 or a (far too warm) 2003. Consistency was, is and will for a long time to come, be key. Reserve wines allowed Houses with a talented chef de cave to blend with the current base wine and come up with the ‘same’ Champagne every year. Customers appreciated this, as they wanted to know what they were getting when they purchased a bottle from one year to the next. They liked a House to be reliable. Reserve wines had the additional benefit in that they provided the Champagnes with extra richness and complexity. This, in turn, allowed the wines to be drunk at an earlier age.

The percentage of reserve wines used each year by any one House varies enormously – it will depend on their stocks, the quality of the vintage and the House style they seek to achieve. It can be as high as 50 per cent. Conventional wisdom tells us that the higher the percentage, the better the wine, but that is not always true. It will depend on the quality of the reserve wines, the quality of the base vintage and the skill of the chef de cave. As an example, Laurent Perrier have been reported as using 30 per cent of reserve wine with the base from 2001. Their normal percentage sits around 10 per cent.

Just having access to a well-stocked library of reserve wines will never guarantee the quality of the final product. That will largely come down to the skill of the chef de cave, but it is a good start. Also, some Houses want youth, freshness and vitality as the hallmarks of their wine. There can be less need for large percentages of reserve wines in that case. Others want more complex, deeper styles and hence, will require a larger percentage of reserves. Houses known for using considerable percentages of reserve wines include Krug, Bollinger, Champagne Mailly, Charles Heidsieck, Bruno Paillard and Louis Roederer, but there are many more.

It is often claimed that the use of a higher percentage of reserve wines, as a generalisation in Champagne, is yet one more reason why the region is the home of the greatest sparkling wines on the planet. In practice, this may be true, but there is no reason that the better regions around the world for sparkling wine can’t use similar percentages (it is very much a ‘producer to producer’ decision, both in Champagne and elsewhere). That may improve their wines, but it does not mean they’ll be able to match those from Champagne, simply because of an increase in the amount of reserve wines used.

An example of the importance of reserve wines is seen with the stratospheric ascent enjoyed by Charles Heidsieck over the last thirty years, during which they have lifted the contribution of these wines to around 40 per cent of the blend. Many of their reserve wines have nearly a decade of age. This has played a strong role in the reason why their non-vintage is universally considered to be one of the very best in the region; wonderfully complex and more than a match for the prestige cuvees of many Houses.

Charles Heidsieck introduced the ‘mis en cave’ program in 1997, a well-intentioned but ultimately confusing attempt to educate customers about reserve wines. The program named the base wine on the label. The problem was that a great many customers, and more than a few sommeliers, despite what they might tell you, mistook this for the vintage. It is not, of course. They eventually moved it to the back label. For me, I’d love to see information like this on the back label of every Champagne, but putting it front and centre, as they did, simply led to confusion (I have had a number of ‘discussions’ with representatives of Charles Heidsieck, whose wines I adore, and it would be fair to say that they take a very different view of this to me, which they have expressed very firmly, but I saw the evidence of the confusion too often to doubt it).

Louis Roederer maintain their stocks of reserve wines in large oak casks, each with an average holding capacity of 6,000 litres. They have somewhere between 150 and 200 of these, providing them with a little under a million litres of reserve wines. It is a priceless resource, though an extremely expensive one for Roederer, and these large oak casks contribute to the texture and to the complexity; part of the reason they are seen as one of the most thrilling Houses of all. Needless to say, the method of storage imparts its own characters to the finished wine. In Roederer’s case, these large casks do not contribute any oaky notes. The use of wood for storing reserve wines is not limited to Roederer. Other Houses known to use oak, in an array of sizes, include Agrapart, Devaux, Veuve Fourny, Ulysse Collin, Philipponnat and Joseph Perrier, though this

is far from an exhaustive list.

Others use tanks of varying size, temperature-controlled receptacles and even bottles. Gimonnet is one producer using bottles, while in Bollinger’s case, the choice is magnums – they are reputed to hold 600,000 to 650,000 magnums of reserve wine in their cellars, all under the agrafe cork. Where bottles are used, a very weak secondary fermentation is usually undertaken, to ensure freshness. Krug did hold reserves in a combination of magnums and concrete vats but has moved to temperature-controlled tanks. It is worth noting, for those who were concerned that the purchase of the estate, by LVMH from the Krug family, would lead to a diminution of quality for this revered House, the first investment was to increase the stocks of reserve wines. They now hold three times the amount they did at the time of the sale.

By now, it will be obvious that in the better Houses, the chef de cave has potentially hundreds of different reserve wines available to him. For some Houses, this can exceed 200 different wines. As well as wines from different vintages and different grapes, remember that the Houses will keep the reserve wines from different crus separate. This is a blessing in many respects – what Chef de Cave would not want access to hundreds of reserve wines when building his non-vintage? – but it also means that he will have to make literally hundreds of trial blends to work his way through to what will eventually be the final combination, which can take weeks of work by the entire team.

The decision as to whether or not to hold back wines for use as reserve wines in later years is up to individual Houses. It can mean a trade-off. No one was ever going to be rushing to keep large quantities of 2001 or 2003, though both have their uses (the high acidity in 2001 could be used to lift low acid years/blends while the 2003 offered the reverse). The better years naturally deliver the wines that everyone wants as reserves, but the problem is that they are also in demand as base wines.

Often, a House will bite the bullet. Charles Heidsieck missed the glorious vintage of 2002, amongst others, in order to increase stocks of quality reserve wines. We may bemoan the fact that there was no 2002 vintage from that House, but we can celebrate with their wonderful non-vintage wines in years to come, knowing that they are even better because of that sacrifice. Krug have made a similar decision with the highly touted 2012 vintage; they have declared that there will be no 2012 but rather, the wines from that great year will go into their reserves. I have no idea how much that will impact on their bottom line, and we will all regret not having the opportunity to drink a Krug 2012 in a decade, however, it is a decision not taken lightly; it will be to their financial detriment, but it will ensure they maintain their stellar standards. Krug are reputed to use up to 200 different reserve wines in their Grand Cuvee in some years, with reserves up to a decade old. As an example, it was reported that Krug, for the Grand Cuvée based on the 2010 vintage, used 42 per cent reserve wine in the blend and that the final combination includes 140 different wines. As Chardonnay was seen as the least successful variety in that vintage, most of the Chardonnay used in the blend was reserve wine.

A few producers, notably Pierre Peters, Francis Boulard and most famously, Jacques Selosse, are using a solera system, similar to that made famous in Jerez with the production of sherry. Selosse is usually credited with instigating this idea in Champagne. Others are maintaining a solera system, which they use for a percentage of their blends, though it does seem that this method is an either/ or proposition. A solera system is ideal for maintaining consistency; a certain amount is removed each year to undertake the second fermentation and effectively, ‘become’ a Champagne. This is replaced by a similar amount from the most recent harvest. It is a little surprising that more Houses are not experimenting with this method, as it seems an ideal way to achieve that much desired “consistent” Champagne.

One effect of an increase in the use of reserve wines, according to some Houses, is that a lower dosage is required to create the same impression in the final wine, as reserve wines can bring richness to years overimbued with acidity and freshness in warm, clumsy vintages. In the past, higher dosages were used to cover cracks. Bruno Paillard was reported as increasing their already high 33 per cent of reserve wines to 50 per cent in the hot vintage of 2003, in order to return their wine to balance. Among the reasons given for the increase in stocks of reserve wines are the financial health of the region and the greater use of temperature control.

Others feel that the encouragement of the CIVC has played a role. In certain vintages, producers were allowed to build their reserves, indeed it was actively promoted. It, in turn, allows Houses to then use greater percentages resulting in better wines. The CIVC carefully monitor and regulate this aspect of production (and pretty much every other aspect). They allowed increases in 2015 due to overall sales increase for the preceding year. Still wine stored in the cellar it might be, but reserve wines play an integral role in the production of non-vintage Champagne. ❧

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