Tom Hewson: My top 10 Champagnes of 2024

The most memorable bottles aren’t just excellent wines; they’re wines with a quality that has come in spite of something.

These are wines that have had to overcome an opposing force, whether the vicissitudes of their vintage, a perilously long ageing period, a poor track record or (just as impressively) a modest final selling price.

Scroll down for tasting notes and scores for Tom’s Champagnes of the year

My most memorable wines also tend to be tethered to people and place. I taste (and spit) a great deal of top-quality wine in different environments, and the bottles that instantly rose to the top of this list were largely ones that I shared with others.

Aged blanc de blancs

The year began with two exceptional aged blanc de blancs from outside the realm of large-maison prestige cuvées.

A few weeks after a stunning Avize Champ Cain 1989 from Champagne Jacquesson, came an unexpected marvel from organic pioneer Pascal Doquet, dug from Champagne collector Peter Crawford’s cellar.

Doquet’s wines are known perhaps more for their vivid, naturalistic style than their longevity, but this Pascal Doquet Grand Cru Le Mesnil-sur-Oger 2015 from the Côte des Blancs in an underrated vintage, was pure and impeccable. It’s one of the most remarkable grower Champagnes of the year.

Les Chétillons

It’s no surprise that the late-disgorged 2009 vintage of one of Champagne’s great single-vineyard wines, Pierre Péters’ Les Chétillons, should prove extraordinary.

The real alchemy of this chalky, tightly bundled classic is what it can do in unexpected vintages; 2009 is a vintage from which wines, rather like 2006, 2015 and 2018, can count relatively few showstoppers among them. This vintage proved the exception.

Cristal and Sir Winston Churchill

Magnums of Louis Roederer’s staggering Cristal Rosé 2013 and Pol Roger’s Sir Winston Churchill 1995 were tasted as part of a retrospective tasting at 67 Pall Mall [Decanter Premium readers will be able to read more about in the new year].

These ought to be special, and indeed they were. Not only that, but each is a great version of themselves; wines that sum up everything these respective cuvées are all about, whether the almost-blinding purity and energy of Cristal or the decadent, heady Pinot Noir of Sir Winston Churchill.

Vintage 2004

The ranks of wines that should have been good, and were, also included a fair number of wines from Bordeaux Index’s remarkable tasting of the 2004 vintage 20 years on.

Taittinger Comtes de Champagne 2004 makes a case for the ultimate Comtes of the last 20 years. The same can certainly be said for Krug 2004 amongst the vintage releases post-millennium, and Charles Heidsieck’s Blanc des Millénaires 2004 may also end up being seen that way.

It’s a vintage that has usurped 2002 in quality and one that just offers more immediate pleasure than the imperious 2008; now’s the time to start opening these Champagnes if you have some.

Coteaux Champenois

In the realms of the unexpected came a true ‘unicorn wine’, encountered during a tasting of Coteaux Champenois, Champagne’s still wines. Georges Remy – whose Bouzy domaine is blazing a trail with boomingly broad, vinous Pinot Noir – presented a red wine from a tiny plot called Chapeau de Fer.

Its sheer drama and concentration stopped me in my tracks. Perhaps there were more classically proportioned red Pinots tasted that day, but there are few places in Champagne where such a wine could be made.

It may not have been the highest-scoring Coteaux of the tasting, but in some ways it was one of the most unusual wines I tasted in Champagne this year.

Bouzy has long been the historic heart of the region’s red wine production, as the warmest terroir in the Marne. Only 147 bottles were produced though – that’s small, even by Coteaux standards!

Rosé Champagne

Tasting a host of rosé de saignée Champagne (darker rosés made by maceration of Pinot skins), turned up a riot of intense, surprising and versatile bottles.

The stunning Rémi Leroy Les Crots Rosé de Saignée 2018 had a perfume just as deep and cherry-luscious as a still Pinot Noir, and the joyous Geoffroy Rosé de Saignée Premier Cru Brut NV (based on the 2018 vintage) from Cumières, shone bright, too. For anyone new to this style, it’s hard to beat.

Entry-level Champagne

Finally, there are wines of a quality that demonstrates years of work in the vineyards and cellars, bearing exceptional fruit and offering consumers a lot for their money.Ayala’s entry-level range is much improved, as has Billecart-Salmon’s, with La Réserve replacing Brut Réserve.

The unfortunate truth for most Champagne drinkers, though, is that value is hard to find below £40 today; the sweet spot is often between £40 and £100

Best-value Champagne of the year

Arguably the best-value wine of the year is Bollinger Blanc de Noirs PN VZ 19. It certainly completes with the current release (2015) of the illustrious Grande Année on quality.

The name itself offers plenty to chew on, but the wine yields even more.

Tom Hewson’s Champagnes of the year: Tasting notes and scores

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