For the serious champagne drinker, the enjoyment received from opening a bottle can be added to, or detracted from, when referring to the back label. Award-winning champagne author, Kaaren Palmer, decodes champagne labels and shares her views on understanding more about the wine within.
Champagne labels disclose some information – the front label states the brand, the type (rosé, blanc de blancs, blanc de noirs, etc.), the year of vintage or the designation (non-vintage) for blends of years, the level of sweetness (brut, extra brut, etc.), the volume held in the bottle, the name and type of producer (NM meaning a producer who buys grapes, RM a producer who owns grapes, etc.), and the name of the village or town in which the wine was bottled.
Reversing the bottle and finding further label information to discuss over dinner, or using that information as an aid to expedite food and wine matching, adds to our enjoyment considerably. When buying champagne, it's much quicker and more convenient to check a label than to scan and find a document on a mobile phone. As for having the disgorgement date stamped on the cork, that's useless in a buying or cellaring situation. When we are storing champagne, in the absence of further detail, the disgorgement date provides a rough guide to the age of the champagne, its youth or development, and how much longer the champagne might need to rest for the dosage to marry with the blend.
Bruno Paillard was the first to disclose disgorgement dates, and his influence can be seen today throughout the Lanson BCC group, which includes Philipponnat. Charles Heidsieck's labels display the disgorgement date, as well as the year of the principal component. Other producers, such as Bollinger and Ayala, have followed suit. It's the growers and small domains that can be credited with the emergence of back labels revealing more; the types of grapes and their percentages in the blend, the exact dosage, the year of the base wine and composition of reserve wines if it's NV, the village or vineyard/s, the disgorgement date and method of production, as well as if it includes malolactic fermentation or not, and, on occasion, the best time to drink the contents of the bottle.
Moreover, one can well imagine that if such care is taken with a label, it's a demonstration of the producer's general standard of care in the viticultural and, subsequently, the production process. Bottles displaying scannable codes are adding one step too many for a dinner party or for a quick retail purchase, useful as it is for the serious researcher and collector to know about the weather, the ageing potential, and the chef de cave's interpretation of the olfactory and other qualities apparent when they and their team tasted the wine at the source. Here, florid language may be indulged. But some scannable codes lead to no information at all (Error 404, file not found), or to general information about the winery or the cuvée.
Champagne et Villages selects from among the finest small growers for our delectation. The labels from this stable are a shining example.
