TN: Champagne & Sparklings with Ed Carr 7/12/10

[n4sir]

One of my wine groups held its final tasting of the year a few weeks ago, again looking at Champagne and sparkling wines with the bonus of Constellation sparkling winemaker Ed Carr in attendance. As usual, all of the following wines were served blind and in pairs, and all were sealed under natural cork – to assist in pouring duties the club supplied XL5 glasses for the tasting, which I think to be honest didn’t help with my impressions:


NV Lanson Champagne Brut: Very bright straw with a good mousse and fine bead. There’s some attractive complexity, yeasty/bready characters on the nose with grapefruit and some hazelnut with breathing; the palate’s surprisingly grippy with both fresh citrus/red apple and developed hazelnut characters, finishing dry and a little short. There were some comments that this example seemed to be showing some bottle age; a solid wine to start with if nothing spectacular.

NV Bay of Fires Tasmanian Cuvée: Very bright straw/green with a vigorous mousse and notably courser bead than the Lanson. My initial impression was this may have suffered the consequences of an obviously dirty glass, smelling like vomit and other unattractive weedy/vegetal characters; the palate’s better, creamy with lime and green apple leading to a very dry, mineraly finish, just a little peek of hazelnut on the very end.


NV Bay of Fires Rosé, Tasmania: Bright salmon pink/peach colour. Very closed and mineraly, some grapefruit deep under the surface, a little fennel and strawberry with a lot of breathing; a creamy entry and mid-palate leads to a very crisp, dry finish with lip-smacking acidity. It’s inoffensive but relatively bland/simple, and lacks mid-palate guts for a knife-and-fork wine.

NV Chartogne Tailoet Champagne Rosé: A less pink colour than the previous wine, something leaning in between salmon pink and brown onion skin. The nose is more complex, yeasty and funky than the local rosé, hazelnuts and rose petals, a little rubber too; a creamy entry is followed by a very dry mid-palate, finishing with similar lip-smacking acidity. It’s more complex than the Bay of Fires, but it still lacks weight and length for my liking.


NV Arras Brut Reserve, Tasmania: Bright straw with a touch of green, a good mousse and a rather course bead. Grassy, weedy and slightly smoky fennel/citrus and green apples; the palate’s sweeter than the following Champagne (dosage?) with very solid length, weight and balance, green apples and tingly acid on the finish. While it’s a solid improvement on the Bay of Fires, the NV Rene Geoffroy it’s paired with immediately highlights its shortcomings.

NV Rene Geoffroy Champagne Brut Expression: Bright straw with a good mousse and very fine bead. A noticeable step up in complexity, weight and length here, hazelnuts, yeast and grapefruit, with touches of apple, grass and citrus, very fine but creamy, finishing with crisp acidity. Easily the best of the first four pairings, even if I didn’t quite rate it as highly as Ed Carr who thought it was a gold medal standard.


2001 Jantz LD, Tasmania: Bright straw/green with a good mousse and very fine bead. Sadly this was corked.

2003 Stefano Lubiana Pinot Chardonnay, Tasmania: Bright green/straw with a good mousse and fine bead. A strange wine, with weird candied and shellfish characters on the nose, and an extremely grassy, lean and bitter palate full of acid. I really didn’t like this, not even a intriguing whiff of tobacco could change my mind.


NV Charles Heidsieck Champagne Brut Réserve Mise en Cave 2004: Bright straw with a good mousse and fine bead. Another step up in complexity, ground coffee grains, white chocolate and mushrooms to go with the hazelnut/apple characters; it’s ballsy and long but open and approachable, and seems to lack the piercing acidity in most of the other wines. It’s great drinking right now, which is probably just as well as I think it’s already peaked – then again I think I said the exact same thing two years ago!

2002 Chandon Prestige Cuvée, Yarra Valley: Bright straw with a good mousse and fine bead. Ground coffee grains, then fresh lime/lemon sherbet characters on the nose, while the palate opens with stonefruit followed by racy acidity and a fine, creamy texture mid-palate, finishing with some hazelnut. I was very impressed with this wines weight, complexity and elegance; I really enjoyed this pairing.


2003 Arras Grand Vintage, Tasmania: Bright straw with a good mousse and fine bead. Very closed nose that’s slightly weedy and stinky/rubbery; the palate’s clean though, full of limes/lemons then apple, a good creamy texture and zippy acidity, and like the Brut Reserve it’s notably sweeter than the Champagne it’s paired with.

2002 Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin Champagne Brut Vintage Reserve: Bright straw with a good mousse and fine bead. Very closed, only releasing subtle whiffs of hazelnut and coffee with a lot of patience/persistence; in contrast the palate’s ready to go, complex and slightly smoky/yeasty, vanilla and hazelnut characters, very fine creamy acidity and a touch of bitterness on the finish. This wasn’t anywhere as good as a couple of bottles I tried two years ago – is it in a funk, or is it bottle variation?


1999 Arras E.J. Carr Late Disgorged, Tasmania: Bright straw with a good mousse and fine bead. Toasty, complex characters that are ever changing, hazelnuts, limes, funky/diesel fumes, mushroom, coffee grounds, apple cider and a little tobacco. While the palate has impressive weight, length and bright, crisp acid mid-palate, it doesn’t have quite the same cohesion as the following 1999 Pol Roger - it's close, but no cigar.

1999 Pol Roger Champagne Brut: Bright straw with a good mousse and very fine bead. Perhaps fittingly, this final wine of the tasting was the best, full of grapefruit, hazelnuts/white chocolate and complex toast/brioche and tobacco characters; the palate weight, length and especially the balance are excellent, the very fine acid and creaminess complement the subtle, complex characters that emerge with each whiff/taste. Of all the wines tonight, it was the closest to what I'd describe as seamless.


Cheers,
Ian

[morph_associates]

Ian, I enjoyed a bottle of '99 Pol Roger Brut last night with my folks... beautiful indeed. Better than the 96 Churchill too, in my opinion (though different beasts). Great value.

[griff]

Ian, I enjoyed a bottle of '99 Pol Roger Brut last night with my folks... beautiful indeed. Better than the 96 Churchill too, in my opinion (though different beasts). Great value.

Big call! I assume for drinking now?

cheers

Carl

[Wayno]

Indeed, a big call. 96 Winston Churchill is probably the best champagne I have tasted... would be keen to get onto some of the 99 PR to compare.