Tag Archives: Franciacorta

Geek Notes — Five Essential Books On Champagne

Champagne is the benchmark for all sparkling wine. Any wine student studying for advance certifications needs to be able to explain what makes Champagne unique. They also should be familiar with important producers–both big houses and influential growers.

Important Champagne books

While there are certainly online resources available, few things top a great reference book that can be highlighted and annotated to your heart’s content.

One of the best tips for wine students (especially on a budget) is to check out the Used Book offerings on Amazon. Often you can find great deals on wine books that are just gently used. This lets you save your extra spending money for more wine to taste.

Since the prices of used books change depending on availability, I’m listing the current best price at time of writing. However, it is often a good idea to bookmark the page of a book that you’re interested in and check periodically to see if a better price becomes available.

Here are the five most essential books on Champagne that every wine student should have.

Christie’s World Encyclopedia of Champagne & Sparkling Wine by Tom Stevenson & Master of Wine Essi Avellan (Used starting at $29.97)

The Christie’s encyclopedia is ground zero for understanding the basics about Champagne (production methods, styles, grape varieties, etc). But, even better, it is a launching pad for understanding the world of sparkling wine at large and seeing how Champagne fits in that framework.

While Champagne will always be a big focus of most wine exams, as my friend Noelle Harman of Outwines discovered in her prep work for Unit 5 of the WSET Diploma, you do need to have a breadth of knowledge of other sparklers.

In her recent exam, not only was she blind tasted on a Prosecco and sparkling Shiraz from Barossa but she also had to answer theory questions on Crémant de Limoux and the transfer method that was developed for German Sekt but became hugely popular in Australia & New Zealand. While there are tons of books on Champagne, I’ve yet to find another book that extensively covers these other sparkling wines as well as the Christie’s encyclopedia.

Changes in the new edition
Chapel Down wine

Global warming has made England an exciting region for sparkling wine. The revised edition of Christie’s Encyclopedia has 17 page devoted to the sparklers of the British Isles.

Tom Stevenson wrote the first Christie’s Encyclopedia of Champagne & Sparkling Wine back in the late 1990s. That edition tallied 335 pages while the newest edition (2013) has 528 pages with more than half of those pages covering other notable sparkling wine regions like England, Franciacorta, Tasmania and more. The new edition also has a fresh perspective and feel with the addition of Champagne specialist Essi Avellan as a significant contributor.

In addition to covering the terroir and characteristics of more than 50 different regions, the Christie’s encyclopedia also includes over 1,600 producer profiles. The profiles are particularly helpful with the major Champagne houses as they go into detail about the “house style” and typical blend composition of many of their wines.

Champagne [Boxed Book & Map Set]: The Essential Guide to the Wines, Producers, and Terroirs of the Iconic Region by Peter Liem. (Used starting $36.57)

The long time scribe of the outstanding site ChampagneGuide.net, Peter Liem is the first author I’ve came across that has taken a Burgundian approach towards examining the terroirs of Champagne.

For a region that is so dominated by big Champagne houses who blend fruit from dozens (if not hundreds) of sites, it’s easy to consider terroir an afterthought. After all, isn’t Champagne all about the blend?

But Champagne does have terroir and as grower Champagnes become more available, wine lovers across the globe are now able to taste the difference in a wine made from Cramant versus a wine made from Mailly.

In-depth Terroir
Pierre Gerbais Champagne

Several of the most delicious Champagnes I’ve had this year have came from the Côte des Bar–like this 100% Pinot blanc from Pierre Gerbais.
Yet, historically, this region has always been considered the “backwoods” of Champagne and is given very little attention in wine books.

Liem’s work goes far beyond just the the terroir of the 17 Grand Cru villages but deep into the difference among the different areas of the Côte des Blancs, Montagne de Reims, the Grande Vallée, the Vallée de la Marne, Côteaux Sud d’Épernay, Côteaux du Morin, Côte de Sézanne, Vitryat, Montgueux and the Côte des Bar.

Most books on Champagne don’t even acknowledge 6 of those 10 sub-regions of Champagne!

Not only does Liem discuss these differences but he highlights the producers and vineyards that are notable in each. No other book on Champagne goes to this level of detail or shines a light quite as brightly on the various terroirs and vineyards of Champagne.

The best comparisons to Liem’s Champagne are some of the great, in-depth works on the vineyards of Burgundy like Marie-Hélène Landrieu-Lussigny and Sylvain Pitiot’s The Climats and Lieux-dits of the Great Vineyards of Burgundy, Jasper Morris’ Inside Burgundy and Remington Norman’s Grand Cru: The Great Wines of Burgundy Through the Perspective of Its Finest Vineyards.

Liem’s book also comes with prints of Louis Larmat’s vineyard maps from the 1940s. While I’m a big advocate of buying used books, these maps are worth paying a little more to get a new edition. This way you are guaranteed getting the prints in good condition. I’m not kidding when I say that these maps are like a wine geek’s wet dream.

Bursting Bubbles: A Secret History of Champagne and the Rise of the Great Growers by Robert Walters (New available for $18.14)

I did a full review of Bursting Bubbles earlier this year and it remains one of the most thought-provoking books that I’ve read about wine.

Photo by victorgrigas. Uploaded to Wikimedia Commons under CC-BY-SA-3.0

If you think I get snarky about Dom Perignon, wait till you read Walters take on the myths surrounding him and the marketing of his namesake wine.

Walters believes that over the years that Champagne has lost its soul under the dominance of the big Champagne houses. While he claims that the intent of his book is not to be “an exercise in Grandes Marques bashing”, he definitely heaps a fair amount of scorn on the winemaking, viticulture and marketing practices that have elevated the Grandes Marques to their great successes.

Throughout the book he “debunks” various myths about Champagne (some of which I personally disagree with him on) as well as interviews many of influential figures of the Grower Champagne movement.

While there is value in Bursting Bubbles from a critical thinking perspective, it is in those interviews where this book becomes essential for wine students. There is no denying the importance of the Grower Champagne movement in not only changing the market but also changing the way people think about Champagne. Growers have been key drivers in getting people to think of Champagne as a wine and not just a party bottle.

Serious students of wine need to be familiar with people like Pascal Agrapart, Anselme Selosse, Francis Egly, Jérôme Prévost and Emmanuel Lassaigne. Walters not only brings you into their world but puts their work into context. While other Champagne books (like Christie’s, Peter Liem’s and David White’s) will often have profile blurbs on these producers, they don’t highlight why you need to pay attention to what these producers are doing like Bursting Bubbles does.

Champagne: How the World’s Most Glamorous Wine Triumphed Over War and Hard Times by Don and Petie Kladstrup. (Used starting at $1.90)

In wine studies, it’s so easy to get caught up in the technical details of terroir, grape varieties and winemaking that you lose sight of a fundamental truth. Wine is made by people.

Of course, the land and the climate play a role but the only way that the grape makes its way to the glass is through the hands of men and women. Their efforts, their story, marks every bottle like fingerprints. To truly understand a wine–any wine–you need to understand the people behind it.

Photo scan from a postcard with unknown author. Uploaded to Wikimedia Commons under Anonymous-EU

During the height of World War I, when the vineyards and streets of Champagne were literal battlefields, the Champenois descended underground and lived in the caves that were used to aged Champagne.
This photo shows a makeshift school that was set up in the caves of the Champagne house Mumm.

While there are great history books about Champagne (one of which I’ll mention next), no one has yet brought to life the people of Champagne quite as well as the Kladstrups do in Champagne.

Set against the backdrops of the many wars that have scarred the region–particularly in the 19th & 20th century–the Kladstrups share the Champenois’ perseverance over these troubles. Even when things were at their bleakest, the people of Champagne kept soldiering on, producing the wine that shares their name and heritage.

If you wonder why wine folks have a tough time taking sparkling wines like Korbel, Cook’s and Andre’s (so called California “champagnes”) seriously, read this book. I guarantee that you will never use the word Champagne “semi-generically” again.

It’s not about snobbery or marketing. It’s about respect.

But First, Champagne: A Modern Guide to the World’s Favorite Wine by David White (Used starting at $6.00)

David White is known for founding the blog Terroirist. He gives a great interview with Levi Dalton on the I’ll Drink To That! podcast about his motivations for writing this book. While he acknowledges that there are lots of books about Champagne out on the market, he noticed that there wasn’t one that was deep on content but still accessible like a pocket guide.

While the producer profiles in the “pocket guide” section of the book overlaps with the Christie and Liem’s books (though, yes, much more accessible) where White’s book becomes essential is with his in-depth coverage on the history of the Champagne region.

A Tour of History
Photo from Département des Arts graphiques ; Sully II, Epi 5, Fonds des dessins et miniatures. References Joconde database: entry 50350213446. Uploaded to Wikimedia Commons under PD-Art (PD-old-100)

A watershed moment for sparkling Champagne was in 1728 when Louis XV struck down the laws that prohibited shipping wine in bottles. Prior to this, all French wines had to be shipped in casks.
Soon after, as White’s book notes, the first dedicated Champagne houses were founded with Ruinart (1729) and Chanoine Frères (1730).

The first section of the book (Champagne Through The Ages) has six chapters covering the history of the Champagne region beginning with Roman times and then the Franks to Champagne’s heritage as a still red wine. It continues on to the step-by-step evolution of Champagne as a sparkling wine. These extensively detailed chapters highlights the truth that sparkling Champagne was never truly invented. It was crafted–by many hands sculpting it piece by piece, innovation by innovation.

There are certainly other books that touch on these history details like Hugh Johnson’s Vintage: The Story of Wine (no longer in print), Kolleen M. Guy’s When Champagne Became French, Tilar J. Mazzeo’s The Widow Clicquot as well as previous books mentioned here. But they all approach Champagne’s history from different piecemeal perspectives while White’s work is a focused and chronological narrative.

I also love in his introduction how White aptly summarizes why Champagne is worth studying and worth enjoying.

“From dinner with friends to a child’s laughter or a lover’s embrace, every day has moments worth the warmth of reflection—and worthy of a toast.

Life is worth celebrating. And that’s why Champagne matters.” — David White, But First, Champagne

It is indeed and, yes, it does.

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60 Second Wine Review — 2008 Ferrari Perlé

Some quick thoughts on the 2008 Ferrari Perlé sparkling wine from the Trento DOC.

The Geekery

Tom Stevenson and Essi Avellan describes Ferrai in the Christie’s World Encyclopedia of Champagne & Sparkling Wine as the “Rolls-Royce” of Italian sparkling wine and note that due to its massive popularity in its home country, only around 10% of the winery’s yearly 420,000 cases get exported.

Founded in 1902 by Giulio Ferrari, who spent some time working in Champagne, Ferrari was the first producer to use the traditional method (metodo classico) for Chardonnay in Italy. In 1952, the estate was purchased by Bruno Lunelli with his grandchildren running Fratelli Lunelli Ferrari today.

In 2017, Ferrari was named Sparkling Wine Producer of the Year at The Champagne & Sparkling Wine World Championships, a honor that often goes to Champagne houses like Roederer.

The 2008 Perlé is 100% Chardonnay sourced from estate vineyards in the Trentino region. After the Franciacorta DOCG, the Trento DOC is the second largest producer of Italian metodo classico sparkling wines.

The wine was disgorge in 2015 after spending over 6 years aging on the lees and bottled with 6-8 g/l dosage. In addition to the sugar, the liqueur d’expedition includes some “select wines” which Ferrari describes as a “family secret”.

The Wine

Photo by Vegan Feast Catering. Uploaded to Wikimedia Commons under CC-BY-2.0

This wine has some nice creamy lemon custard notes

High intensity nose. Lemon custard and pastry dough. Some floral and spice elements are also present. Very evocative.

The mouthfeel is very creamy with noticeable yeasty, bready flavors. The citrus lemon notes are still present but seems like more apple pastry tart on the palate. The wine also has ample acidity with some savory salty minerality adding complexity.

The Verdict

This is a pretty stellar bottle for around $30-35. This wine’s been aged like a vintage Champagne but is priced better than most non-vintage Champagnes!

The complexity you get for the money is certainly outstanding and I would put this toe to toe with $60-75 Champagnes any day of the week. As noted above, not a lot of this makes its way to the US but if you can find a bottle, grab it!

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Champagne Masters and their Bull Shit

By Comite Champagne - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, On Wikimedia CommonsFood & Wine recently published an article by wine educator and “prophet” Jonathan Cristaldi titled “Pop These 25 Bottles and Become a Champagne Master”.

The article had so many mistakes (some glaringly obvious) that it made my head hurt.

While I wholeheartedly support any message that begins with “Pop these bottles…”, if you don’t want to look like a bloody fool to your friends, let me tell you some of the things you SHOULDN’T take away from Cristaldi’s list.

1.) Veuve Clicquot did not develop techniques to control secondary fermentation. Nor did they perfect the art of making Champagne. (Intro)

Oh good Lordy! At least Cristaldi later redeemed himself a bit by accurately noting that Dom Perignon didn’t invent Champagne. Instead, the good monk spent his entire career trying to get rid of the bubbles. But this is a whopper of marketing BS to start an article.

First off, let’s give Veuve Clicquot due credit for what her and her cellar master, Anton Mueller, did accomplish. From 1810 to 1818, they developed the technique of riddling to remove the dead sediment of lees leftover from secondary fermentation. This helped produce clearer, brighter Champagnes. Important, yes. But even this technique wasn’t perfected at Veuve Clicquot. It was a cellar hand from the Champagne house of Morzet and M. Michelot who perfected the pupitre (riddling rack) that truly revolutionized Champagne production.

Furthermore, riddling has nothing to do with controlling secondary fermentation. It merely deals with the after-effects that happen months (usually years) after secondary fermentation is completed.

A Toast to a Team Effort
By Albert Edelfelt - Photograph originally posted on Flickr as Albert EDELFELT, Louis Pasteur, en 1885. Date of generation: 27 August 2009. Photographed by Ondra Havala. Modifications by the uploader: perspective corrected to fit a rectangle (the painting was possibly distorted during this operation), frame cropped out., Public Domain, on Wikimedia Commons

Pasteur’s work detailing the role of yeast in fermentation and Jean-Baptiste François’ invention to precisely measure how much sugar is in wine, contributed far more to the Champagne’s industry efforts to “control secondary fermentation” than a riddling table did.

Credit for understanding the secondary fermentation in sparkling wine goes to Christopher Merret.  In 1662, he delivered a paper in London on the process of adding sugar to create gas in wines. But this process was fraught with risks. Regularly producers would lose a quarter to a third of their production due to exploding bottles. It was challenging figuring out how much sugar was needed to achieve the desired gas pressure.

The major breakthrough for that came in 1836 when Jean-Baptiste François, a pharmacist and optical instrument maker, invented the sucre-oenomètre. This allowed producers to measure the amount of sugar in their wine. By the 1840s, a tirage machine was invented that could give precise amounts of sugar to each bottle to make the wine sparkle without exploding. These developments, followed by Louis Pasteur’s work in the 1860s on the role of yeast in fermentation, set the industry on the road to “perfecting the art of making Champagne.”

Truthfully, it was a team effort with many hands involved. It’s disingenuous (and, again, marketing BS) to give exorbitant credit to anyone for making Champagne what it is today.

2.) No vintage of Krug’s Grande Cuvée is the same because it is not a vintage Champagne! (Item #2 & Item #4)

Likewise, Dom Perignon is not “a blend of several older vintage base wines”.  This is one of Cristaldi’s most glaring errors that he repeats throughout the article. He truly doesn’t seem to understand the differences between vintage and non-vintage Champagnes.

A non-vintage or “multi-vintage” Champagne.
Note the lack of a vintage year on the label.

Non-vintage Champagnes, like Krug’s Grande Cuvée, are blends of multiple years that need to be aged at least 15 months. As Cristaldi correctly notes, some examples like Krug are aged far longer and can include stocks from older vintages.  But it’s still not a vintage Champagne. This is why you do not see a year on the bottle.

A vintage Champagne, such a Dom Perignon, is the product of one single year and will display that year on the bottle. By law, it needs to be aged a minimum of 36 months. You can’t “blend in” older base wines from another vintage. If you want an older base wine, you need to age the entire vintage longer.

3.) Speaking of Dom Perignon, the “6 vintages released per decade” thing hasn’t been true since the ’80s (Item #4)

Again, marketing mystique and BS.

While, yes, the concept of vintage Champagne was once sacred and reserved only for years that were truly spectacular, today it all depends on the house. Some houses, like Cristaldi notes with Salon, do still limit their vintage production to truly spectacular years. But other houses will make a vintage cuvee virtually every year they can.

Seriously…. there is so much Dom made that it is being turned into gummy bears.

In the 2000s, while the 2008 hasn’t been released yet (but most assuredly will be), Dom Perignon declared 8 out of the ten vintages. In the 1990s, they declared 7 out of 10–including the somewhat sub-par 1993 and 1992 vintages.

Now, as I noted in my post Dancing with Goliath and tasting of the 2004 & 2006 Dom Perignon, LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy) credits global warming for producing more “vintage worthy” vintages. There is undoubtedly some truth to that. But there is also truth in the fact that LVMH can crank out 5 million plus bottles of Dom Perignon every year if they want and have no problem selling them because of their brand name.

And, if they don’t sell… well they can always make more gummy bears.

4.) Chardonnay grapes do not take center stage in every bottle of Henriot (Item #5)

The Henriot Blanc de Blancs is excellent and worth trying. But so are their Pinot noir dominant Champagnes like the Brut Souverain and Demi-Sec (usually 60% Pinot according to Tom Stevenson and Essi Avellan’s Christie’s World Encyclopedia of Champagne & Sparkling Wine) and the vintage rosé (at least 52% Pinot plus red Pinot noir wine added for color). Even Henriot’s regular vintage Champagne is usually a 50/50 blend. Again, not to discredit a great recommendation to try an awesome Champagne from a well-regarded house, but it is just lazy research for a “Champagne Master” to describe Henriot as a “Chardonnay dominant” (much less exclusive) house.

If you want to talk about Chardonnay-dominant houses, look to some of the growers based around the Grand Cru villages of Avize, Cramant and Le Mesnil-sur-Oger in the prime Chardonnay territory of the Côte des Blancs. Here you will find producers like Agrapart & Fils, Franck Bonville, Salon-Delamotte and Pierre Peters that, with few exceptions–such as Agrapart’s six grape cuvee Complantee and Delamotte’s rosé, can be rightly described as putting Chardonnay “on center stage in every bottle.”

5.) No, not all the vineyards that go into Cristal are biodynamically farmed. (Item #6)

Some great resources if you don’t want to sound like an idiot when spouting off about your “mastery” of Champagne.

Update: It took almost two years but the “wine prophet” finally got one right. In December 2019, Roederer released the first Cristal sourced entirely from biodynamic grapes.

In November, I got a chance to try the new 2009 Cristal with a brand ambassador from Louis Roederer. And while I noted in my post, Cristal Clarity, that Roederer’s push towards eventually converting all their vineyards to biodynamics is impressive–right now they are only around 41% biodynamic. Of course, most of this fruit does get funneled towards their top cuvee, but in 2017, that was still just 83% of their Cristal crop.

6.) No, Taittinger’s Comtes de Champagnes are not Chardonnay only wines. (Item #11)

The Comtes de Champagne is a series of prestige vintage cuvees made by Taittinger to honor Theobald IV, the Count of Champagne. This includes a delicious Comtes de Champagne rosé that is virtually always Pinot noir dominant.

In the 1930s, Pierre Taittinger purchased the historical home of the Comtes de Champagne in Reims. Renovating the mansion, they released the first Comtes de Champagne in 1952. Yes, that was a Blanc de Blancs, but the rosé version followed soon after in 1966. While there are some vintages where only one style is released (such as only the rosé Comtes de Champagne in 2003 and the Blanc de Blancs in 1998) in most vintages that are declared, both versions are released.

7.) I doubt Queen Victoria and Napoleon III time traveled to drink Perrier-Jouët’s Belle Epoque (Item #14)

By W. & D. Downey (active 1855-1940) - collectionscanadanpg.org, Public Domain, on Wikimedia Commons

With all the Champagne houses with histories of being run by widows, it’s kind of surprising that no one has ever done a special bottling for the world’s most famous widow.

Perrier-Jouët’s first release of the Belle Epoque was in 1964.

Cristaldi may have been trying to insinuate that those long-dead Champagne aficionados enjoyed the wines of Perrier-Jouët that were available during their time (which were FAR different in style than they are today). However, he’s dead wrong to say “Napoleon III, Queen Victoria and Princess Grace of Monaco were all fans of this gorgeous bubbly, which boasts classic white-floral notes (hence the label design), along with candied citrus and a creamy mouthfeel.

I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, though, on Princess Grace since she didn’t pass away till 1982.

Likewise….

8.) Marie Antoinette was dead more than 40 years before Piper-Heidsieck was founded (Item #15)

Kinda hard to be a brand ambassador when you don’t have your head. (Too soon?)

Again, I suspect this is just lazy research (and/or falling for marketing BS). But considering that the picture Cristaldi uses for his recommendation of Piper-Heidsieck (founded in 1834) is actually a Champagne from Charles Heidsieck (founded in 1851), the betting money is on general laziness.

A bottle of Piper-Heidsieck, in case Jonathan Cristaldi is curious.

Now for most people, I wouldn’t sweat them getting confused about the three different Champagne houses with “Heidsieck” in the name. While Champagne is nothing like Burgundy with similar names, there are some overlaps with the Heidsiecks being the most notable.

As I recounted in my recent review of the Heidsieck & Co Monopole Blue Top Champagne, the three houses (Heidsieck & Co. Monopole, Charles Heidsieck and Piper-Heidsieck) trace their origins to the original Heidsieck & Co. founded in 1785 by Florens-Louis Heidsieck.

But Piper-Heidsieck didn’t appear on the scene until 1834. That was when Florens-Louis’ nephew, Christian, broke away from the family firm to establish his own house. Even then, it wasn’t known as Piper-Heidsieck until 1837 when Christian’s widow married Henri-Guillaume Piper and changed the name of the estate.

Now, wait! Doesn’t the label on a bottle of Piper-Heidsieck say “founded in 1785”? That’s marketing flourish as the house (like the other two Heidsieck houses) can distantly trace their origins back to the original (but now defunct) Heidsieck & Co. But Christian Heidsieck and Henri-Guillaume Piper likely weren’t even born by the time Marie Antoinette lost her head in 1793–much less convincing the ill-fated queen to drink Piper-Heidsieck with her cake.

It’s not an issue for regular wine drinkers to fall for marketing slogans. But someone who is presenting himself as a wine educator (nay a Wine Prophet) should know better.

9.) Carol Duval-Leroy is not one of the few women to lead a Champagne house (Item #21)

Beyond ignoring the essential roles that women like Lily Bollinger, Louise Pommery, Marie-Louise Lanson de Nonancourt, Mathilde-Emile Laurent-Perrier and Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin (Veuve Clicquot) have played throughout the history of Champagne, it also discounts the many notable women working in Champagne today.

The De Venoge Princes Blanc de Noirs is made by a pretty awesome female chef de cave, Isabelle Tellier.

Maggie Henriquez, in particular, is one of the most influential people in Champagne in her role as CEO of Krug. Then you have Vitalie Taittinger of that notable Champagne house; Anne-Charlotte Amory, CEO of Piper-Heidsieck (and probable BFFs with Marie Antoinette’s ghost); Cecile Bonnefond, current president of Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin; Nathalie Vranken, manager of Vranken-Pommery; Floriane Eznak, cellar master at Jacquart; Isabelle Tellier, cellar master at Champagne Chanoine Frères and De Venoge, etc.

Is there room for more women in leadership in the Champagne industry? Of course, especially in winemaking. But let’s not belittle the awesome gains and contributions of women in the history (and present-day) of Champagne by sweeping them under the rug of “the few.”

Though what did I expect from a man who literally uses a woman as a “table” in his profile pic on his personal website?

Is there an end to the pain? God, I hope there is an end…

Though not as egregious as the glaring errors of mixing up Vintage vs. Non-vintage and touting long-dead brand ambassadors, I would be amiss not to mention one last thing that upset at least one of my Champagne-loving friends on Facebook.

At the end of his article Cristaldi throws out two (excellent) recommendations for a Californian sparkling wine from Schramsberg and a Franciacorta made in the traditional method in Italy. I appreciate that Cristaldi does point out that these two items are technically not Champagnes. However, it is hard not to miss the general laziness in how he leads off his article. He describes the list of wines to follow as “… some of the most iconic Champagnes out there, featuring an array of styles and price-points, so study up and become the Champagne know-it-all you’ve always wanted to be.” Again, a sin of imprecision and sloppiness.

To sum up this article, my dear Champagne-loving friend, Charles, had this to say about Jonathan Cristaldi’s article on Food & Wine.

The article is “riddled” errors. The author should be given an “ice bath” so that he can contemplate “disgorging” himself of the idea he is a master. At the very least someone should burst his “bubbles”. The article never should have made it to “press”

Now what?

I’m not going to claim to be a “Champagne Master” (though I’ll confess to being a Bubble Fiend) because frankly, I don’t think that title really exists. Even Tom Stevenson and Master of Wine Essi Avellan who literally wrote one of THE books on Champagnes and sparkling wine, probably wouldn’t consider themselves “Champagne Masters.”

To celebrate the Supreme Court decision in US v Windsor that legalized gay marriage nationwide, my wife and I threw a party in honor of the five justices that voted for equality.

People who put themselves in positions as wine educators or influencers owe it to their readers to provide valid information. Encouraging people to open bottles and try new things is terrific advice. Backing that advice up with falsehoods, embellishments, conflicting and confusing statements? Not so terrific.

No one knows everything and people make mistakes. It’s human nature. Hell, I’m sure I made at least one mistake in this post. But 9+ errors (2 of which are basic ‘Champagne 101’ stuff) is failing the readers of Food & Wine and everyone that those readers pass this faulty information along to.

Wine drinkers deserve better from our “prophets.”

Note: A follow up to this article can be found at Thought Bubbles – How to Geek Out About Champagne

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