Introducing Coteaux Champenois: Champagne’s still wines

Champagne is the world’s most famous sparkling wine, its secondary fermentation in the bottle known as la methode Champenoise.

But before the monks Dom Ruinart and Dom Perignon realised the potential of capturing bubbles in bottles – thanks to advances in glass technology and with the relatively new medium of cork as a stopper – the wines were originally still.

Scroll down for Steven’s tasting notes from a recent Charles Heidsieck Coteaux Champenois tasting

As the laws of appellation came into being in the early 1930s, the still wines took the clumsy title Vin Originaire de la Champagne Viticole, to be changed in 1953 to Vin Nature de la Champagne. While this expressed exactly what it was – and there were some excellent examples of grand cru Chardonnays from the Cote de Blancs and grand cru Pinot Noirs from the Montagne de Reims (Bouzy especially) – the INAO changed the name in 1974 to Coteaux Champenois.

What had been a wine for the connoisseur from specific vineyards of quality could now be produced from all over the region and of course it was not, as the sparkling version was, better and much more profitable.

By the mid 1980s, these wines had vanished from the market, leaving only two brands of note: Moet & Chandon’s white Château de Saran from the château’s vineyards outside Epernay, and Bollinger’s red La Cote aux Enfants from a plot of Pinot Noir behind the cellars in Aÿ.

Tasting Coteaux Champenois

So I was very pleasantly surprised recently to taste four white Coteaux Champenois wines from the 2017 vintage, all 100% Chardonnay and each from an individual cru, created by Cyril Brun, chef de caves at Charles Heidsieck.

As Brun stated while presenting these new wines, ‘Before the bubbles appear, all our wines are still and it is from these wines that our intuition guides our choice of blends. While we were tasting the wines from 2017, four barrels made an enormous impression on me. These gems amongst wines, my very favourites, can now be shared with all oenophiles eager to experience a facet of my work as a blender.’

For anyone who has taken part in the arduous tasting of vins clairs in the spring following the vintage, it’s the differences between the villages and crus that count, complementing each other in the final blend. One or two of these individual wines, sometimes several, will stand out and become a prized component.

By reserving these four barrels, each very different, to present them in their pure, natural non-sparkling state, Brun has offered to the oenophile something that had been al but lost.

Sold only in four-bottle cases at an RRP of £290, these are not cheap but guarantee a high level of pleasure and interest – but snap them up quickly as only 300 of these cases are available worldwide.

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