champagne

Good Champagne

Good Champagne ages gracefully

Champagne and sparkling wines are beloved for the immediate gratification that their heady bubbles and fresh fruit taste offer. So it may seem surprising that this seemingly fleeting drink, with its flying corks and temporal effervescence, has the capacity, when given the chance, to age into something quite extraordinary in terms of both taste and value.
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Just ask Jay James, a master sommelier.
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A self-described "old Champagne nut," James is president of Vintrust, a San Francisco-based wine management and cellarage company. None of James's clients now collect vintage Champagnes.
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Most of them, he says, never think to set any aside.
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"But I do," said James, who said he had tasted vintage and nonvintage Champagnes from France and sparkling wines from elsewhere that had "aged quite beautifully."
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James's claim is not so hard to believe when one considers the chemistry behind the making of Champagne and sparkling wines.
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Hugh Davies, wine maker and general manager at Schramsberg, the premier U.S. maker of sparkling wine, said the combination of carbon dioxide and high acidity created "a sort of blanket effect in the bottle that protects the fruit and allows it to age more gracefully and brown more slowly than even a noncarbonated red wine."
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That said, ensuring the presence of the carbon dioxide, which gets trapped during the second fermentation of the wine known as méthode champenoise, requires additional labor, which explains why better bottles of newly released Champagne and sparkling wines easily command more than $100 each at retail.
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Schramsberg, based in St. Helena, California, has been making sparkling wines for nearly 40 years.
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Prompted by growing demand for some of its older vintages, particularly the Reserve and J. Schram, it has begun issuing select quantities of its older vintages to its 4,000 club members.
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Many Champagnes that hit the primary market have already been aged, perhaps for six or more years.
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The Krug family of France is just now releasing its vaunted 1990 Vintage Brut, which is retailing for more than $350 for a 1.5-liter magnum, the equivalent of two standard bottles.
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Serena Sutcliffe, head of Sotheby's international wine department in London and co-author of "The New Sotheby's Wine Encyclopedia," said that while she would not normally recommend buying Champagne as a classic investment wine, a Krug 1990, "set down for some years, will accrue in value."
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Among Sutcliffe's top picks for premium vintages with strong resale values are Bollinger 1975, Moët & Chandon Dom Pérignon 1982, Pol Roger Champagne Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill 1988, Louis Roederer Cristal 1990 and 1996. Despite their following, aged Champagne and sparkling wine are not for everyone. As James said, "There are people who expect Champagne to taste fresh, and if it doesn't, they won't like it at any price."
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Eric Benn, co-owner of the Bubble Lounge, which has restaurants in New York and San Francisco devoted to the beverage, said most Champagnes ought to be consumed within five to 10 years. But speaking of a 1958 Roederer Cristal he had recently tasted, he said, "I've never had anything as beautiful."