Houses don’t come much bigger than Veuve Clicquot, but they also don’t come much better either. Despite its marketing prowess and colossal production of more than 18 million bottles, the House is anything but average. Grand Cru pinot noir solidly frames the majestic tension, focus and richness of Veuve Clicquot’s style and drives its reserve wines to be some of the most complex, sharp and enduring ones in all of Champagne. Sara Underdown explains.
"It’s very sharp and precise - so it might be a good vintage,” muses Didier Mariotti, Veuve Clicquot’s relatively new chef de caves about 2020’s potential. “La Grande Dame is quite stunning - I think we can do something with it.”
Everything at Veuve Clicquot hinges on a highly-strung standard of pinot noir from the cooler climes of Verzy and Verzenay, but also Bouzy and Ambonnay. A vintage is never declared otherwise. Balance between the skins, juice and tannins, and the preservation of freshness, is important for retaining the House’s signature sharp and rich style, but also for off-setting fast-maturing vintages.
Mariotti understands pinot noir well. More than 25 years on from when he first arrived in Champagne, he has become an industry stalwart, with runs on the board at Moët et Chandon, Nicolas Feuillatte and G.H. Mumm before moving onto Veuve Clicquot. He credits his 13 years at G.H. Mumm with his love for Champagne’s king varietal, especially from its traditional villages in the Montagne de Reims.
“For me, when I arrived in 1995, champagne was the wine of celebration but then I realised it was a proper wine and began to study old vintages. Its potential for aging was a revelation to me - I think it has the propensity to age the most, in fact.”
Pinot noir is the cornerstone of Clicquot’s ubiquitously marketed non-vintage, Yellow Label, which corrals a mind-boggling 500-700 base wines but also 300 reserve wines, somewhat miraculously, into an enthralling and wonderfully complex champagne pulsating with energy and focus.
“We start with harvest and vinify all crus separately. Our intention is to express pinot noir in a fresh and delicate way. For me, the non-vintage has to be easy to understand - fresh but also fruity -because it’s an apéritif at the end of the day,” he says.
Clicquot’s reserve wine collection is kept crisp and juicy, with a little dried fruit evolution, but also quite sharp to ‘awaken the palate’. The philosophy is to decide which base wine to use in the non-vintage blend or otherwise add it to the reserve wine collection.
There are three big ‘families’ of reserve wine: one to three years in reserve adds maturity; four to ten years adds spice; and ten or more years adds deep complexity. So, the blend comes from young and mature years and just a little from those adding spice.
“I like to profile wine in terms of complexity and structure. If I think it can age, then for how long? If it goes into the reserve wine program, it’s a good indication of aging potential. We check it every six months and see how the profile is changing.”
Clicquot’s Extra Brut Extra Old is another testament to their enduring reserve wine system. Its base receives a minimum of three years aging before undergoing blending into young reserve wines, mature reserve wines, as well as reserves with spice. Once blended, bottles are aged for three years on lees.
“What’s important is the verticality of our wine, which adds structure, together with horizontal definition to add texture. All reserve wine its vertical.”
The creaminess and body that comes from more horizontal profiles are found mostly in Clicquot’s vintages, inclusive of fruit matured in foudres (large format oak). The benefit is micro-oxygenation and therefore texture. Around 10-15 percent Grand Cru fruit is placed in foudres from declared vintages as well as some reserve wine, but these are to a much lesser degree.
In the current 2012 vintage Brut, the succulence of Bouzy pinot noir softens out the blend. Fruit appears mature and creamy with considerable texture, although the rosé remains very sharp. But in the House’s most anticipated release from 2008, La Grande Dame, Mariotti says that pinot noir was particularly sensitive.
“For me, it’s like you need to start with a backbone – sharpness – and then work around that.”
At 92 percent pinot noir, the 2008 La Grande Dame is an audacious blend from the House’s most historical Grand Cru sites in Aÿ, Ambonnay, Bouzy, Verzy and Verzenay. Eight percent is chardonnay from Le-Mesnil-sur-Oger.
“When moving to more than 90 percent pinot noir, we looked to the north - Verzy and Verzenay. The northerly exposure means less sun and more structure but with extra bitterness to make for a long finish. There are three steps in its profile: the attack; mid-palate texture; and then finishing with bitterness. 2008 is vertical but also complex and rich with a lot of dried fruit and toasted bread.”
By contrast, La Grande Dame’s 2012 release steps down a notch, to 90 percent pinot noir, and appears more open and generous, revealing greater complexity and smoother texture.
Pinot noir’s influence over Veuve Clicquot is now a well-known and often told story; they were the first to blend red and white varietals together to make a rosé champagne, a legacy from the days of Madame Clicquot, the House’s famous widow, who became a pioneer for the pink style (and also the act of riddling). She travelled to Burgundy and learnt the art of extracting fruit from pinot noir to create the first blended version of this style.
“Colour is important because you taste rosé champagne first with your eyes,” says Mariotti. “We can do a rosé in Champagne with a maceration or a blend. Saignée is difficult because colour can change quickly. Ours includes 14 percent red wine and we have a dedicated winery in Bouzy for reds, working with our own fruit and growers. It’s important to produce it in the vineyard because we need concentration. There is no barrel work.”
A year or so on in his role at Veuve Clicquot, Mariotti has taken to it like a puzzle master, dissecting the pieces and putting them back together, but it’s not as though he hasn’t done it before.
Though some changes are inevitable, as is always the case in a period of renewal, there are things that never will. Veuve Clicquot’s commanding use of pinot noir, in all of its sharp, rich and powerful glory, has made an everlasting legacy for the House, as it will for its current cellar master.
Photography supplied by Veuve Clicquot
