Ten Memorable Champagnes in 2019

This coming February will mark twenty years for me here at K&L, and I feel truly blessed as I look back at a great 2019. It was very difficult for me to narrow this list down to just ten most memorable Champagnes, as I have been lucky enough to have had so many great bottles over the last twelve months. Most of the wines on this list I drank, not just tasted, and I am pleased to report that after all this time in the business, my enthusiasm for Champagne has not faded at all.

My first great experience was in February, defiantly picnicking in the rain at Hog Island Oyster Company on Tomales Bay with Cinnamon. While I shucked oysters, Cinnamon steamed clams on the grill while we enjoyed the Bruno Michel "Assemblée" Brut Champagne. This blend of 78% Chardonnay and 22% Meunier from some of the coldest sites in Champagne provided an electric accompaniment to the shellfish. The five years of aging on the lees and the 30% reserve wines are balanced out this organically grown, mineral stuffed masterpiece. This is my number one choice for any trip to the oyster beds. Rain will not stop the party!

As usual, my buying trip to Champagne yielded many outstanding experiences. The first was on March 21st in the tiny hamlet of Drachy while visiting the Fallet family. At lunch, we were treated to a bottle of 1985 base non-vintage that exceeded even the lofty expectations of the family. This wine still had a vibrant white gold color at 34 years of age and was loaded with morel cream and ripe pear flavors. The family guessed that this was composed of about 60% Meunier and 40% Chardonnay with about 40% reserves from 1983 and 1984. It was disgorged on the spot with zero dosage and had plenty of richness.

Two days later, Clyde joined me to visit Mathieu Roland Billecart, the 7th generation CEO of Champagne Billecat-Salmon in Mareuil to taste current and upcoming releases. After tasting the 2018 vin clair and the whole lineup from this great house, Mathieu surprised us by treating us to the 2002 Billecart-Salmon "Le Clos Saint-Hilaire" Brut Blanc de Noirs Champagne. This tiny garden plot is within the family's walls and produced just one press load—3700 bottles. Mathieu explained that they walk the bins over to the press- it is just steps away! Composed entirely of old-massal selected Pinot Noor and dosed at just 1g/l, this is the current release at seventeen years old! The Nutella-like richness and black truffle savor are balanced by minerality and drive that are off the scale. I can almost still taste it.

The very next day, Olivier Bonville took us for a vineyard tour to the three sites where he grows the fruit for the “pur” range. The last stop was in Avize, and we first climbed into the three-foot-deep hole that Olivier had dug to show off the subsoil of this parcel. Afterward, we tasted the 2018 vin clair and the finished Franck Bonville "Pur Avize" Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne that came from the very place where we were standing. Unforgettable! My notes read “perfect blanc de blancs,” and I found the wine to be effortless yet kaleidoscopic in complexity with fresh cream, white peach, and chalk in perfect harmony.

Every year, Krug picks out an ingredient to inspire pairings with their wines. In 2019, it was pepper, and on Easter, we decided to give it a try with the Krug "Grande Cuvée" 167 Ème Édition Brut Champagne, which had just been released. Years ago, my friend and former colleague Alex Brisoux introduced me to the joys of different peppers on Foie Gras, so we experimented with pink, Szechuan and Tellicherry with the Krug. The pink peppercorns were our favorite, bringing out the savory red fruit in the wine. The 167 spans the vintages of 1995-2011 and had depth rarely found in even great wines on release. As usual, the pain-grillé from long aging on the lees was backed up by brilliantly refreshing acidity. A holiday treat.

We dined in the garden with our 1995 Le Brun de Neuville "Grand Vintage" Brut Champagne, which had been aged a mind-boggling twenty-two years on the lees. Cinnamon had prepared a dinner of sautéed halibut and pesto pasta with sun-dried tomatoes and last of season asparagus. The decadent, brioche-filled Champagne was wonderful with the food, and because of the chalky terroir of the village of Bethon still completely refreshing. One cannot cheat time, and this Champagne earned its complexity due to the extraordinary patience of the team at Le Brun de Neuville.

For her birthday this year, Cinnamon requested a barbeque up at Huddart Park in Woodside. I packed up the caviar and a magnum of the Aspasie Brut Prestige from our cellar and we headed up the hill to rough it for the afternoon with her mom and a group of friends. This magnum had been in the cellar for a while and was from the last harvest, 2002, of the old vines in the Walin plot that were destroyed by hail in 2003. This wine had the best texture of any Champagne that I have had this year, with an extraordinarily fine bead. I found it layered and nutty in the most subtle and elegant way possible, and it showed perfectly with the caviar. Underneath the canopy of Redwoods, it was truly magical.

Each year, I gather the whole Champagne team in Redwood City, and we taste through all of the current releases from all of the major houses. This year we tasted 53 Champagnes from sixteen producers, and the highlight for me was the  2002 Louis Roederer "Cristal" Brut Champagne Late Release (Direct from Roederer 2019). This is not a “recently disgorged” release, but rather one that has been aged on the cork in the cellars at Roederer in Reims. Jean-Baptiste Lecaillon, the chef de cave at Roederer, is a believer in cork aging, and after tasting this, I think that anyone would be. I found this full of lovely cream, presented with finesse and elegance and just starting to show the tertiary nougat of aged Cristal. This had one of the longest finishes of any wine that I have ever had.

For my birthday this year, Olivier Bonville gave me a bottle of the 1977 Franck Bonville "Millesime" Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne that his father made. I had it for my birthday, paired with a gorgeous salmon mousse that my mother-in-law Margaret made for the occasion. This unknown, seldom declared vintage was a rainy one in Champagne, and this is one of only two that I have had from this year—the other one was from Collard-Chardelle, the son of René Collard. The Bonville still had a bright gold color at forty-two years of age, a soft pearl of bubbles and a wonderful combination of white truffles and Devon cream in the mouth and on the nose. This was disgorged decades ago, and the higher dosage of the time was noticeable in the wine, but it still went perfectly with the salmon.

This December, Cinnamon and I hosted Stephanie Vidales, our beer buyer who is now also part of the Champagne team, and her boyfriend Jake for dinner. We started the festivities off with the 2012 Louis Roederer & Philippe Starck Brut Rosé Nature Champagne and slices off of the Jamon Iberico that Cinnamon gave me for my birthday. This is the first release of a rosé nature for Champagne Louis Roederer and is entirely made from vineyards in Cumieres, the warmest microclimate in the Marne valley. This is the longest, most elegant zero dosage Champagne that I have tasted, and absolutely did not need any sugar added to it. The balance and finesse of the wine left me a little speechless, with red cherry Pinot Noir fruit that left nothing to wish for except for a larger bottle.

I hope that your year was full of memorable times with friends, family, and good Champagne as well.

Cheers to a great 2020!

-Gary Westby