Wine & Spirits - Fall 2018 - 61

GAME CHANGERS

Champagne
Non-Dosé

Once upon a time, when Champagne was a marginal climate for ripening grapes,
growers and winemakers developed a tradition of adding a touch of sugar to balance the acidity in their wine. They called it dosage, which was usually in the form
of sweet grape must, or liqueur d'expédition, a solution of cane or beet sugar and
wine. But it isn't there just to sweeten the wine. When considering the role of
dosage in Champagne, Peter Liem of ChampagneGuide.net compares its function to salt in food. "We don't necessarily add salt to a dish to make it salty, but to enhance our perception of other flavors," he wrote in A
Seasoning for Champagne (W&S, 12/17). "When a dish is properly salted, we don't even notice the presence of the salt itself: Rather, the
dish gains completeness, harmony and complexity due to salt's ability to interact with and enhance other flavors." I've been challenged
by non-dosed Champagne in the past, so when I read Liem's note that "there are Champagnes that feel complete and expressive without
any dosage at all, yet in this era of climate change they are rarer than commonly presumed," I was compelled to seek out the rarities. Here
are five that performed particularly well in our Champagne panels, the ratings and tasting notes from Joshua Greene. -DEANNA GONNELLA
Benoît Lahaye Champagne
Brut Nature Grand Cru

Mostly pinot noir (90 percent)
and mostly from Bouzy (80 percent), with a contribution from
Ambonnay, this is a brisk and
briny Champagne. You might
think of a lobster-shell
broth when you smell it, or
Granny Smith apples when
you taste it. That fruitiness
makes it feel richer than
most Brut Natures, and the
mineral abrasion cuts back
on any excess richness, so
the wine races forward,
ready for a plateau de fruits
de mer, or, if you're headed to a Japanese
restaurant, hamachi kama. (90 points, $70;
V.O.S. Selections, NY)

Vouette & Sorbée
Champagne Brut Nature
Blanc d'Argile
Working in the Côte des Bar,
Bertrand Gautherot has farmed
his Demeter-certified vineyards
biodynamically since 1998.
Fermented spontaneously in
oak barrels, presented without dosage, Blanc d'Argile is a
bare, naked chardonnay that
bristles with energy, then quiets to the warmth of the cool
autumn sun. Crunchy apple
and complex herbal notes
add to the wine's stony, mineral power. It's
lovely Champagne, elegant and compellingly drinkable. (94 points, $108; AvantGarde Wine & Spirits, NY)

Georges Laval Champagne Brut Nature Premier Cru Cumières
Georges and Nicole Laval gained organic certification for their vineyards in
Cumières in 1971; their son, Vincent, came on board in the 1990s and makes the
wines today, including this cuvée based on the 2014 vintage. It's a blend of chardonnay (50 percent), pinot noir (30 percent) and meunier, fermented in oak
barrels. At first, it feels aggressively naked, with apple and sandalwood notes
and nonstop minerality. There's a cidery side to the flavors that had one
taster suggest the wine was "courting hipsters," but that melds into the mineral tones that emerge with air. It turns fresh and salty, a wine to decant for
the Montauk fluke, pickled fennel, trout roe and Thai basil at Four Horsemen in Brooklyn. (92 points, $90; Transatlantic Bubbles, Woodbridge, CT)

Eric Rodez Champagne
Dosage Zero Grand Cru
Ambonnay
Combine barrel fermentation
with no dosage and the initial
impression of this wine is stark,
as if sucking all the air out of
the room, even as it coats
your mouth with flavor.
Once you acclimate to the
wine's intensity, you might
find the detail in those flavors, the underlying sweet
ripeness of the fruit, a gracious, pinot noir-driven
sweetness that feels brisk
and classically vinous, with a
mineral elegance that brings you back for
more. (92 points, $90; Charles Neal Selections, San Francisco/AP Wine Imports, NY)

Louis Roederer 2009
Champagne Brut Nature
Philippe Starck
Musky and muscular, this
wine starts out with unforgiving acidity, yielding to the
fruit as the structure mellows with air. It's a Champagne to decant or, if you're
opposed to losing bubbles,
to stopper and revisit as it
develops over the course of
hours and days. The wine's
austerity fills out in notes of
almond and honeysuckle,
salt and citrus. This is a collaboration between Roederer and French
designer Philippe Starck, a blend of pinot
noir, meunier and chardonnay grown
in the clay soils of Cumières, harvested
and fermented together. It's a wine that
requires a sunny vintage, as it's produced
without malolactic and without dosage. (95
points, $89; Maisons Marques & Domaines
USA, Oakland, CA)
WINE & SPIRITS

FA L L 2 0 1 8

http://www.ChampagneGuide.net

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Wine & Spirits - Fall 2018