Le Concours des Ambassadeurs du Champagne 2005

By Anthony Stockbridge

On a freezing Sunday in late November, eight contestants emerged from the fog, at the four-star La Briqueterie Hotel at Vinay on the Cote des Blancs near Epernay, to compete in the finals of ‘le Concours des Ambassadeurs du Champagne’. 

Le Concours des Ambassadeurs de Champagne is a new, annual competition designed to reward wine educators who have a special interest in champagne wine.  To reach the European finals, each entrant had to complete the national challenge.  The first stage in this was to complete a CV, write a four thousand word essay on the topic ‘creating a champagne blend’, and matching champagne styles with each dish of a set four-course meal.  Five finalists were selected to go forward to the national finals, which, for the UK, took place at the Dorchester Hotel in London in October.  There, the national finalists presented a thirty-minute presentation as though to a class, conduct a tutored tasting of four champagnes and answer two questions chosen from a list of three. 

The national finalist was rewarded with six dozen bottles of champagne, three dozen champagne tasting glasses, a cased set of Hugh Johnson’s atlas and wine guide and a framed certificate and, best of all, a luxury week in Champagne to compete against the other seven national ‘ambassadeurs’ in the European finals.

The Finalists

The eight were sommelier Roberto Belini (Italy), wine merchants Pierre-Yves Cainjo (France) and Jose Paadin (Spain), wine hotel school wine teachers Reinhard Austen (Germany), Frans Lathioor (Belgium), and Stephen Herter (Switzerland), a wine merchant from Epernay, wine educator and writer Noële Ruitenberg (Holland) and myself, Anthony Stockbridge (U.K.), independent wine educator.  What we had in common was that we are all engaged in activities through which we explain wine to other people and each of us had won their respective national final of the competition. 

We were introduced over dinner at the hotel when Delphine Géraud, an oenologist responsible for communications at the CIVC, outlined our full programme for the next four days.  Delphine was a member of the judging panel at each of the national finals.

Union de Champagne

As Monday dawned, a mist still enshrouded the surrounding vineyards. This, of course, meant that a planned hour-long flight over the vineyards was aborted.  Instead, we were taken to the ‘Lighthouse’ at Verzenay that was converted into a fascinating museum of the vine by the commune a few years ago.  There followed a trip through the top villages of The Montagne de Reims (the driver picking his way gingerly as visibility was down to fifty yards) to our first visit to a manipulateur.

This was the Union de Champagne whose members are exclusively communal cooperatives who produce Premier and Grand Cru champagnes; an échelle rating of 100% for grand cru and 90 to 99% for premier cru.  This is champagne production on a grand scale.  Cutting edge equipment from stainless steel blending vats (each of the two largest having a capacity of 3,214 hectolitres), through liqueur de tirage machinery, bottling equipment, dozens of computer-controlled giropalettes and a continuous dégorgement á la glace/dosage/corking machine capable of handling the Union’s vast output.

Although the Union bottles 100,000 cases under its own brands, the major proportion of its work entails producing wine for several large houses, including Moët et Chandon and making Buyers-Own-Brands including Tesco’s award winning Premier Cru.

Hands On

Our hands-on experience however was not to do with the high tech, high volume of the business.  We were taken out into the vineyard to learn and practice the technique of pruning according to the appellation’s strictly controlled rules.  Only two methods of pruning are permitted for premier and grand crus champagnes: Taille de Royat (mainly for Pinot Noir) and Taille Chablis (Chardonnay).  The third permitted training style, Guyot, that is usually used for Pinot Meunier, is not practised here.

Our second practical task was disgorging ‘á la vollée’.  Despite the vast capital investment in auto-disgorgement at the union, magnums and certain prestige brand still undergo traditional remuage and disgorgement.  As with all skills, the expert makes it look simple.  We each disgorged two magnums and all managed to spray more champagne over themselves and fellow contestants than was left in the bottle.

Veuve Cliquot

In contrast to the previous day, a windless Tuesday dawned bright and clear.  We were collected from Le Briqueterie by Phillipe Wibrotte from the CIVC for our day in Reims.

First: Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin.  At the production unit in Reims we were conducted around a fascinating display tracing the history of the company and its most illustrious head, la Grande Dame, Madame la Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin.  We were shown her ‘field desk’, a handsome empire style bureau, which accompanied her wherever she went: an early equivalent of a laptop.

In the blending tasting room, François Chirumberro, one of four winemakers and member of the tasting committee led us through a tasting of this years ‘vins clair’ and reserve chardonnays and the two pinots going back five years. The high acidity, freshness and high levels of fruit in these individualistic, bone dry wines provided a small insight into the difficulties confronting the chef de cave as he or she composes a cuvée that after the addition of liqueur de tirage will be bottled, subjected to secondary fermentation then, in the case of VCP, aged in the cellars for up to seven years before disgorgement.  How is it possible to forecast the final result of the interaction of up to seventy different wines maturing at different rates yet be certain that the champagne will faithfully reflect the house style when it eventually appears on the wine merchant's shelf?  Added to this is the pressure of knowing that any mistakes are irreversible!

A tour of the Gallo-Roman chalk crayeres: the cellars descending some fifty meters from a small surface hole and expanding as the Roman excavation went lower.  The various pits were subsequently linked forming tens of kilometres of cellars, which provide the perfect conditions for manipulating champagne.  A recently created 14 meter long gallery took five months to dig, using modern machinery so it seems incomprehensible that the extensive labyrinths under Reims and Epernay were dug by hand using no more than hammers and chisels.

The fine luncheons and dinners served to the contestants each day warrant a separate report but the excellent luncheon offered by VCP at Mme Clicquot’s family home, l’Hotel du Marc deserves special mention: langoustine, quail, fromage and praline, each with its perfect Veuve Clicquot champagne match. At the home of Jean-Claude Rouzaud, the president of Roederer, we ate tartine de saint-Jacques, rosace de canard, fromage and nougat glacé, each with their perfect match which included Cristal 2000 en magnum, Brut rosé 1999 and Brut rosé 1892 en magnum.

Krug

Our afternoon visit was to the singular house of Krug.  Here, vins clairs from the 220 litre oak casks were being blended.  Krug always vinify in wood, not for oak effect but because the micro-oxidation ‘inoculates’ the wine, protecting it from unwanted oxidation at later stages.  To avoid the vanillin effects, casks are not used until they are a minimum of three years old.  Their casks are first used to age cognac for a year.  They then spend a year filled with water and in the third year they are filled with lees.  Only then are they ready to be used for Krug’s Vinification sous bois. Another of Krug’s strengths is patience:  not a bottle leaves the cellars until it has been there a minimum of six years. A tasting of the Grand Cuvée, Rosé and 1990 vintage demonstrated the house style and sheer quality of Krug’s champagnes.

The Concours

Day three again dawned bright but the spring in the step of the contestants seemed absent.  Instead there was an air of apprehension because this is the day of the concours. At the offices of the CIVC we were taken, one at a time to a small room where three champagnes were already poured but with no sight of the bottles.  We had fifteen minutes to prepare a tasting session to present to the judging panel.  One was clearly a young, fresh rose, one appeared to be a blanc des blancs and the third, an antique gold champagne of some age. 

At the allotted time, we were conducted into a large bare-wooden floored room.  At one side was a long table behind which sat the ten straight-faced judges.  As one threaded one's nervous way through the session, the jury’s faces appeared to get longer.  Was there a hidden button I could press to release me from the ordeal?

A splendid, light but delicious luncheon, at La Table Kobus (worth looking out for) separated the two tests.

Back at the CIVC lots were drawn for the subject of a half-hour training session.  Our only prior knowledge was the fact that it would be to do with ‘assemblage’.  I drew ‘Explain the main differences of the terroir in Champagne and the diversity it brings to the blend’, and was allowed thirty minutes to produce a thirty minute presentation which followed-on immediately.  With hardly time to draw a breath, I was back in the dragons’ lair.  Having been first on stage in the morning, I was last in the afternoon and confronted by ten jaded judges. There was a flip chart (with dry pens!) and a map of the Champagne region on an easel.  Having completed the task, the die was cast and there remained nothing but for all eight contestants to console each other over dinner and champagne at the hotel.  We would not know the outcome until results were announced at a gala dinner the following evening.

Roederer

On day four, the final day of our Champagne epic, the sun rose over the vineyards into a clear blue sky. Our final visit was to Roederer, one of the oldest champagne houses, founded in 1766.  At first glance, Roederer is an ultra-modern operation with stainless steel and the highest standards of cellar hygiene but a couple of aspects give the specificity to its wines.  Reserve wines are stored in 60 hl wooden vats.  As they lose five percent of their contents annually, second reserves are stored in smaller champagne casks and this wine is used for topping-up the larger vessels.  The second practice is that of storing liqueur wines made from the very top chardonnay and both pinot wines from each year and blended in equal parts.  These too are stored in large wooden casks, in air-conditioned cellars until required for use.  The Roederer philosophy is that the wine used for the liqueur d’expedition is as important as the first assemblage as it is the last opportunity that the company will have to influence the final champagne.

After luncheon, despite the weather showing signs of closing in, we were flown over the vineyards of the classic three regions in three light aircraft. 

The Results

The concours concluded with a glamorous gala dinner at Mercier in Epernay.  The contestants approached the evening with bated breath.  This was the moment the winner of the concours was to be announced. We arrived at quarter-to-eight and descended by lift to the second cellar level where candles lit our way through galleries of pupitres to a cathedral-like banqueting hall laid out for a hundred and twenty guests.

A short video commentary on each contestant was followed by the announcement of the winners in traditional reverse order:  third was Noële Ruitenberg from Holland, second was Anthony Stockbridge from UK and the winner was Frans Lathioor from Belgium.

Champagne flowed throughout a meal prepared by France’s top outside caterers, the Parisian firm of Potel and Chabot. Back at the Briqueterie champagne continued to flow as the eight contestants reviewed the week.  All agreed that, in good British style, it really was the taking part that was the best part of the experience and not the winning. For each competitor a whole new network of contacts had been established and new opportunities were presenting themselves.

© Anthony Stockbridge 2005