More on Champagne vintages -- two different perspectives

  1. Champagne to rein in vintage releases

Speaking to the drinks business during a visit to London this week, Hadrien Mouflard, managing director of Ayala said: “Before the global financial crisis business was booming and houses were making prestige cuvées vintage after vintage, even in 2001, which was awful.

“The crisis has been a good thing in this regard as it forced producers to take stock and reflect on what they were doing. The recent trend for multiple vintage releases is a hangover from pre-recession days. “Over the next decade we’ll see this scaled back. People will go back to basics and I predict that most houses won’t release wines from the 2009, 2010 and 2011 vintages because they weren’t very good.

“You need to send out a clear message – vintage Champagne and prestige cuvées should be special, not released every year. It devalues the concept to release every year. People will come back to three to four releases a decade.” (article continues)

  1. Michael Chapoutier launches Champagne with Devaux

Renowned Rhone-based winemaker Michel Chapoutier has unveiled his first Champagne, which has been made in partnership with Devaux.

The new fizz is a vintage Champagne made solely with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay and has been called Sténopé, from the French word for a pinhole camera, in reference to the fact that the Champagne aims to create a photographic image of a terroir every year.

. . .

The pair of producers plan to release a vintage every year, which will “faithfully capture the image of the vintage”, according to Chapoutier – “rather than simply the expression of terroir in a declared vintage”. (article continues)