C&B Scene » Champagne

Birthday Bubbles to Celebrate Delamotte’s 250th Year

Davina — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 14:57:03 +0000

250th birthdays are rare for Champagne – so rare that only 4 have ever been celebrated. This year marks the impressive milestone for Champagne Delamotte, making it the sixth joint oldest Champagne House. Celebrations are, most definitely, in order. To kick things off, Didier Depond, President of Champagne Delamotte and Champagne Salon, spent all last week with us, visiting top Delamotte customers throughout the country. An intense programme included visits and tastings with Harrods, Fortnum & Mason, top restaurants such as The Square and the Gordon Ramsay Group in London as well as outside, such as Gérard Basset’s stunning TerraVina, the gorgeous new Limewood Hotel on the fringes of the New Forest, and Cunard Cruises.

Last Thursday was the turn of 50 lucky, private customers, who came to the Groucho Club in Soho for a celebration dinner. Brut NV bubbles kicked off the evening with a quick word from Adam and Didier about the relationship between Corney & Barrow and Champagne Delamotte and Salon; we have been lucky enough to be exclusive agents for Delamotte for 15 years (and Salon for almost 10.)

Le Mesnil-sur-Oger should always be said in the same breath as Delamotte, Adam then stressed, referring to the most prestigious of villages in the Côte des Blancs, where both Delamotte (and Salon) are based. This unique location means that the grapes used in Delamotte’s blanc de blancs non-vintage and vintage cuvées are 100% Grand Cru – a little known point of distinction for Delamotte.

We matched Delamotte Blanc de Blancs NV with potted crayfish; this style is so quintessentially Delamotte, at once soft and delicate but precise, its minerality cutting through the richness of the starter.
The main course was a sea bass with roasted fennel, paired with the Delamotte Blanc de Blancs 1999, the current vintage release from Delamotte. This wine is showing beautifully now, having emerged from its chrysalis in the last year. Its white blossom aromatics, ripe citrus flavours and incisive minerality proved an excellent match to this dish, and demonstrated yet again how well Champagnes can partner food. Our next glass was Delamotte Blanc de Blancs 1990, a special and rare treat for Corney & Barrow customers as there are no further stocks available for purchase; Didier very generously provided these bottles from Delamotte’s precious library archive, for the 250th dinner. Guests were not disappointed; the 1990 is the perfect evolution of the 1999, showing more complex aromas yet retaining its freshness and flavours of stone fruit and white flowers. The wine blossomed in the glass, developing notes of baking bread, brioche and mushrooms. The palate was perfectly balanced showing great finesse, power and elegance.

A birthday isn’t a birthday without a cake! We had Delamotte’s 250th anniversary cake hand made to a special recipe containing ground almonds and topped with delicate wild berries, the perfect match for a glass of Delamotte’s elegant saignée Rosé with its delicate acidity and fresh raspberry and cranberry notes.

Salon hits the big 100 next year, so more celebrations in store. Watch this space…

Further Options

Champagne Salon in muddy wellies – just how it should be…

Davina — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:15:55 +0000

The ridiculously glitzy ‘celebratory’ status enjoyed by certain champagne brands pre-crunch made it easy to forget that champagne is in fact a hugely delicate living substance, created and wholly dependent on, ostensibly, ‘farmers.’ A wintery trip down to the prestigious Champagne village of Le Mesnil sur Oger to visit our two Houses, Delamotte and Salon (positioned right next door to each other) was the perfect way to put things back into perspective: Quiet and unassuming, this sleepy town is far from glitzy and after a perishing cold winter, looked as if there had been a mass exodus. Perhaps the complete absence of life was a result of the Mesnil folk still being deep in hibernation…or maybe this is a permanent state of affairs?
Either way, our tour of the neighboring sister Houses Salon and Delamotte was fascinating. Relatively speaking, Delamotte is more commercial in size than Salon, which has a bottling line the size of a small babyfoot table! (Both are a mere tadpoles compared to the toad-esque grandes marques.) The Champagne House was bought and nurtured by the eccentric M. Eugène-Aimé Salon as a hobby and the building – despite a later over-indulged branding exercise which included the gutters, weather vain etc – still very much maintains the air of a private home. Eugène-Aimé, who died in 1943, was chardonnay obsessed, seeking out the best parcels of the grape to create the ultimate Blanc de Blancs Champagne. It was all originally for his own consumption. His focus on chardonnay remains the key to the Salon and Delamotte range today.
We were given us a fascinating tour of the cellars which included a quick lesson in disgorging (See Luke on left) “It is a quick, two-action motion” said Jean-Baptiste (export Director) confidently, as he demonstrated the ancient technique in which you remove the cap and the lees from the top of the bottle whilst retaining as much as possible of the precious liquid inside. Needless to say, it is a highly skilled practice which is not easy to acquire in an instant – like, I suspect, the art of the hand-riddling which is still practiced by the 60 year old ‘riddler’ on all the Salon wines.
Tasting the disgorged wines was fascinating. They have not had the benefit of a ‘spoonful of sugar’ (or dosage) which is added when the wines are corked, ready for sale. The difference between the completed wines and the recently disgorged non-dosé wines (ie with no added sugar) is marked; some argue that it is a truer, more natural style. This, we agreed, may have been the case with the just-disgorged 1996 Delamotte Blanc de Blancs, which was utterly delicious. However, in general, while comparing them, it seemed that the added dosage acted like a gentle hand on a beautiful string puppet, pulling taut each of its delicate strings to make it dance.
We also tasted the 2009 base wines for Delamotte, taken from surrounding areas – a very interesting exercise. These are all grand cru chardonnay. Elegance from Avize, lovely soft texture and fruit from Oger (the wines are meursault-esque by way of comparison) and a very apparent punchi-ness from Cramant. Exact blending proportions for these wines are down to one person only, but, needless to say, each one adds its own, important, element of style. Tasting the Delamotte Blanc de Blancs 1999 (dosé and non dosé) went a long way to demonstrating this – two utterly delicious and very impressive glasses of wine.
The tour ended in muddy wellies in one of the few Salon vineyards. We watched the highly-skilled pruners hard at work with their lethal looking sécateurs and listened to a detailed account of just how labour-intensive the vineyards are in Champagne due to their susceptibility to disease; at Salon, they put in up to 500 man hours per hectare versus an average of 300-350 in Burgundy. This was a sure way to re-ignite an understanding of what really is important in Champagne and grow a true appreciation of the extreme hard work, skill and knowledge that goes into every bubble.

Further Options

and they’re off……

Will — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:00:00 +0000

First blog entry since the site has gone live although there are plenty of blogs from the last few months – Dinners, Tastings, Burgundy trips etc – I have been getting things ready for a while!!

It’s been a hell of a week.

Last Friday saw the release of Domaine Leflaive 2008 and the vast majority sold that day which made for quite a buzz around the office as the phones rang and the emails flew (is that the right terminology?). Fraser then did the Sloane club Rhone dinner in the evening which went well by all accounts. I won’t bore you with the weekend details other than the fact that Twist Magic winning at Sandown finally got by betting back on track.

Before I knew it Monday was on us and there was still some Domaine Leflaive business to do which was good but telling customers that many of the wines had all gone is never easy or enjoyable. There was a hint that the new website (which you will have seen if you’re reading this!) would go live over night………..but no there was a slight integration (hate that word!) niggle and another 24 hours would be needed.

Tuesday was an extraordinary day – Adam and I both manned the C&B Table at the first Royal Warrant Holders Christmas Fair which was held in the Ballroom of Buckingham Palace for 1000 members of the Royal Household and their guests. A great day meeting some fascinating people including the Queen, not something you can say everyday. Once out of the Palace, no blackberry/mobile action in there, I saw that the site was minutes from go live. The amount of work has been mind blowing from tasting notes to pricing to functionality…….

Wednesday, quick interview first thing…always like to see and stay in touch with people who write in and may be of interest in the future…after that it was looking at the selection of wines for the post Christmas Bin-end, working on a few teething issues on the web (it needs a period of “running in” so the speed should improve!) and setting the offer Calendar for next year. Exciting reports of a spectacular tasting at Clos de Tart have a started to emerge, it looked at vintages spanning an amazing 116years, I have attached these below….they reinforce what I feel, which is that the estate is a stunning terroir and now under the control of Sylvain Pitiot is going from strength to strength…very exciting times for the estate (see Burgundy Day 5 for the Clos de Tart 08′s tasting notes).

http://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/a20091208.html

http://blog.cavesa.ch/index.php/2009/11/21/191523-bourgogne-passe-present-fabuleux-clos-de-tart

http://www.academiedesvinsanciens.org/index.php?archives/2131-English.html&serendipity%5Blang_selected%5D=en

With the first full day of the web done it was time for a drink!

Thursday dawned and it was time to re-focus on wines for Christmas and all the offers we have out at the moment….almost too many toys to play with. Joined the Board for a drink at lunch time, Flor de Pingus ’99 showing brilliantly and ready from now onwards, Corton-Charlemagne 2003 from Bonneau du Martray which is opulent but not too 03ish and to start (not sure why I’ve done the wines backwards) Delamotte Blanc de Blancs NV which, loyalties aside, I love.

And so to Friday….one of those frustrating start everything, finish nothing days, but given that this time in two weeks I’ll have a glass of something fizzy in my hand it can’t be too bad.

Over time I will introduce various aspects of C&B life and the characters here but we have to lead off with Darth!! Guess who got this as their Secret Santa last year?

Right time to cycle home!

Further Options

A great meal……..14 bts of quality….well 13

Will — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:43:00 +0000

Tuesday was UGC (Union de Grand Cru) day when the trade and press gathers to taste the recently bottle vintage in this case 2007.

I felt the wines were better than I expected. My picks of the reds were Domaine de Chevalier, Gazin, La Lagune and Leoville Poyferre.

The sweet whites were stunning as was expected. The level of sweetness really varying though from intense (de Fargues) to balanced and more elegant (La Tour Blanche). My overall impression was of genuine wines that are, sadly, over priced compared to the cheaper and generally better 2006’s & 2008’s.

I looked on UGC as a warm up for a big fine wine evening the following night chez Hargrove…..format was very relaxed – Darts and Backgammon to go with the wine (all served blind).

To get things going – Delamotte NV in magnum with 3 years or more bottle age – delicious, not over serious just great drinking

Chablis 1er Cru Butteaux 2003, Raveneau – corked…gutted especially as I love Chablis and this would only have been my second Raveneau.

Then followed 4 different 2002 Germans with the scallops and Chorizo:

Urzinger Wurzgarten Spatlese, Christoffel – elegant and delicious now and the guys were all quite close with guesses most getting Spatlese and vintages between 01 & 03.

Brauneberger Juffer Kabinett, Fritz Haag – deliciously Mosel in character and my favorite but interestingly not as good as the 2001 I had recently, good producer one I’ll watch, guesses good again.

Keseler Nieschien Spatlese, Karlsmuhle – A little lacking in character and not that exiting but a the price £10ish a bargain all the same.

Hocheimer Riechstel Kabinett, Kunstler – A curve ball of a wine. Everyone baring one person though it was Auslese, alcohol was only 7.5%, colour dark and most guesses were in the 90’s (‘93-‘00). Weird!

With Leg of Lamb and then cheese we assaulted the reds:

Barolo Brunate 1970, Macarani – Wine of the night by common consensus – seriously complex and tasting younger than 39 years of age, I got it from a mate in the trade who had tasted it recently and enjoyed it. Makes me more sure that Nebbiolo I a grape I need to buy more of. A real highlight!

Five left bank 1996’s – JM realised early it was a 1996 Horizontal so just looked smug!

Branaire Ducru – Fine but just not exciting, proper claret good fruit and structure but no more
Calon Segur – Slightly tighter and with away to go, nice
Pontet Canet -
Leoville Poyferre – Showy and in all honesty a bit of a one glass wonder…a little over fruited
Cos d’Estournel – Very classy and TB spotted in immediately, a lovely wine that is great now but has a long, long future

Overall I think we were a bit too critical of these wines. 13 year old clarets from a good vintage, they were structured and if there was a fault it was that they lacked charm (a little like).

With a couple of tarts (Apple and Plum!!):

Rieussec 1975 – 2bts – My birth year and the first 1975 Sauternes I have had. Both bottles were good and very similar (not always the case) lovely texture and superb with the tarts and remnants of cheese. Very honeyed and complex but with acidity. I hadn’t planned to have two bottles but it was worth it!

By the time the glasses were cleaned it was 3am!! A great night.

Further Options

Delamotte Champagne with Jean-Baptiste…

Will — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:44:00 +0000

Only a quick one today as it’s frankly too hot to concentrate for long!! Jean-Baptiste (on the left speaking with me at Delamotte in Jan 2008) was in London to present to the team. The wines

as ever were terrific.

NV, Mellow and creamy, perfect aperitif

Blancs de Blancs NV, the iconic wine of the range for me, aged 5-6years in bottle, currently based on the ’02, one of Champagne’s “Bargains”. The Chablis of Champagne for its racy crispness.

Blancs de Blancs 1999, this has really broadened out in the last year and starts to show a touch of Meursault richness but still so fresh, drink now and over the next 5

Rose NV, Along with LP Rose and one Duval leroy do the only Champagne Roses made without adding red wine. Almost a copper/salmon colour.

The range goes from strength to strength and rumour has it a snew label is on the way….

Cycling home tonight will be hot but I knw there is some very chilled Manzanilla waiting for me so it’ll be worthwhile!

Further Options