A Year in Champagne

2020 will be hard year to forget for many tough reasons that no one looks at our blog to be reminded of. Today I am flipping through last year’s wine notebooks and finding the good memories for my annual Champagne retrospective. I hope that you enjoy taking a look at these 10 memorable Champagnes from 2020 as much as I have enjoyed remembering them!

We kicked off New Years Eve 2019/2020 with the most overperforming bottle of Champagne one could ever hope to drink, the Ariston Aspasie "Réserve" Brut Champagne. With five years of ageing on the lees this wine has the perfect harmony of 40% Chardonnay and 30% each of Pinot Noir and Meunier from estate vineyards. It has it all, great toasty character from long ageing, great freshness from the far northern vineyards of Brouillet, and a distinctive stamp of what has become a second home for me in the Champagne region.

Dungeness crab season looks like it might be a bust this winter, but last year we took advantage as much as we could. One of my favorite parings of the year came in early January 2020 with cold dungy, take-and-bake sourdough, and a big green salad. We opened a bottle of the 2013 Franck Bonville "Millesime" Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne to go with this, as well as a couple of bottles of good Chablis. It was still January, and we could still drink in a group! The 2013 harvest was the latest of my career in Champagne, and I will never forget how tired all the producers were when they arrived for the tent event. This late season was not an overall success, but was great for Chardonnay, and this might be one of the best of the vintage. A masterpiece of subtlety, this wine has “stiff peaks” of delicate creaminess and a light touch, all executed without dilution.

In the complete opposite style, I was wowed by the Gosset "Grand" Extra Brut Blanc de Noirs Champagne. This 100% Pinot Noir powerhouse was fabulous with trout mousse on crackers, and had richness that made me wonder why they chose to call it an extra brut. At five grams per liter of sugar, it meets the criteria for that style, but this is broad, rich, mouthfilling Champagne with 9 years of ageing on the lees. Not only does this Champagne have the power of youth and the chalk drive of the grand cru of Aÿ, it also has the complexity and vinous depth of age.

I only took one in-person meeting during the whole pandemic, with Geoffrey Loisel and Eric Lecours from Champagne Billecart-Salmon. It was a lovely August day for a backyard business review, and, in our masks, from far away, we got more done than we could have on zoom. At the end of the meeting, we spread out to the far corners of the yard and enjoyed a near perfect bottle of Champagne, the 18-year-old 2002 Billecart-Salmon "Cuvée Nicolas François Billecart" Brut Champagne. This nougaty, deep Champagne was full of brioche and super generous on the nose and in the mouth. It was also as chalky as they come, and didn’t seem at all heavy. What a treat.

If I didn’t give myself 11 great Champagnes for my list of 10, I would be cheating myself. I am counting the Louis Brochet "Extra Noir" Extra Brut Blanc de Noirs Champagne and the Louis Brochet 1er Cru "Extra Blanc" Champagne as a pair. We had these with a big spread of sushi from our local favorite Kanpai and it was Champagne-lovers heaven. The old, massal-selected Pinot from the Extra Noir went so perfectly with the tuna and salmon nigiri—it is a pity only 2000 bottles were made. There isn’t much of the Extra Blanc either at 4150 bottles for the world, and it went like magic with all of the rolls.

Much praise has been given to the 2008 vintage in Champagne—for good reason. This is the best vintage of my career in Champagne, and it is great to see more releases rolling in every year. The 2008 Taittinger "Comtes de Champagne" Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne was one of the most anticipated releases of 2020 and was worth the wait. They have only released 37 vintages of this pure grand cru blanc de blancs since its first release in 1952. I made seared ahi with wasabi beurre blanc to go with it, and Cinnamon and I were both knocked out by how much this wine exceeded our very high expectations. This Champagne was concentrated yet racy, full of sourdough generosity on the nose and chalky precision on the back. Expensive, and worth every penny!

My best friend Henry, who has been in the fish business longer than I have been in the wine business, called me on October 29th with exciting news—he had aired-in, completely fresh King Crab from Alaska. I couldn’t grab my mask and jump in the car fast enough! A luxurious treat like this deserved an equally luxurious Champagne, and Cinnamon and I opened a bottle of the 2012 Louis Roederer "Cristal" Brut Champagne to go with it. This entirely estate-grown tête de cuvée is a biodynamically farmed blend of 60% Pinot Noir and 40% Chardonnay from the chalkiest, best-exposed sites in the region. This vintage saw 32% fermentation in mostly very large oak barrels, and is amazingly open and generous for a young Cristal. It had a golden baguette aroma, and the best texture of any Champagne that went into my mouth this year; supple, silky, and creamy. The back end was more than lively and went on for near eternity. With the big, nearly hot dog–sized pieces of crab, it was a true trip to paradise.

For my birthday this year, I opened the last bottle of 1996 Launois Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs in my cellar for a special treat. This has developed a golden color after 24 years and some lovely carmel notes on the generous bouquet, and, in the mouth the wine has widened to a Meursault-level of richness. We had this wine on its own for the aperitif, and it had everything just by itself. The energy was still there as well as the famous Mesnil chalk. If you are lucky enough to still have some of this left, there is no hurry to drink it. I wish I had more!

Having a glass of Champagne at closing is a long tradition at K&L, but it has been made more difficult by the pandemic. We took turns at the 1998 Piper-Heidsieck "Cuvée Rare" Brut Champagne Magnum 1.5L instead of toasting as a group, but I would have been happy to drink it standing on one leg in a bucket if I had to. This magnificent magnum-only release has a nose of toasted panettone, complete with butter and dried fruit complexity. The clean apricot and fresh white flowers made it seem far younger than its 22 years, but the seamless texture and deep complexity in this wine can only be had with age. My colleagues found everything from honey to smoke in this masterpiece, which has freshness in hand for another generation of ageing!

For Christmas eve dinner, Cinnamon and I were treated to an incredible experience from the team at Naomi Smith and the team at Laurent-Perrier. They had given us a gorgeous black truffle and a bottle of the Laurent-Perrier "Grand Siècle" Iteration #24 Brut Champagne. In the picture, you will see that it is in a special cage, but the bottle inside is the same as we have had all year. Cinnamon cooked up a risotto with our turkey stock from Thanksgiving, which we shaved our entire truffle into to- how decadent! The Champagne is composed of 2007, 2006 and 2004 harvests and made in tiny quantities compared to most of the other big house tête de cuvées. In my notebook, I wrote “far too easy to drink for a wine so complex.” To me, that is the definition of Grand Siècle—Michel Fauconnet, the chef de cave works hard to make something that is in such perfect balance that all one notices is the pleasure. Like all great wines it has the complexity of age alongside the energy of youth. My adjectives fail me!

A toast to you, and to a great 2021!

- Gary Westby