Champagne Expands

The INAO has announced that the Champagne AOC region will increase and that 40 new villages will be given the right to market their wines as Champagne AOC. (2 Villages, Germaine and Orbay de l’Abbaye, will be demoted, according to The Decanter.)

While Simon Field urges consumers to give “the Champenois the benefit of the doubt” in a recent post on the Berry Brothers & Rudd Fine Wine Blog, I’m inclined to disagree.  If it is true that, “Those who do not learn from History are doomed to repeat it,” then the INAO and Mr. Field for that matter need to look no further than Champagne’s neighbor to the south for an instructive example.

Ask ANYONE in Chablis where the least favorable vineyards are, and they will tell you they are in the villages of Beine, Ligny-le-Chatel, Lignorelles, etc.: in other words all of the vineyards that were added when Chablis expanded in 1978.  They are not bad by any means, but the difference in quality between Chablis from one of these vineyards and, for instance, the vineyard les Pargues, a traditional lieu-dit just south of the 1er Cru Montmains is striking.

As Mr. Field tells us, “So the INAO have done the research, have employed the geologists, the climatologists, in short all possible experts and have identified 40 new communes where, apparently, the quality of the land, soil, aspect and so forth is deemed suitable for Champagne vines.”  In essence has used the same rigorous examination that they used in Chablis, a process that resulted in 1er Crus such as Cote de Savant and Vauligneau whose wines are commonly outclassed by Chablis AC from historic lieux-dits.  I am no less comforted that, as Mr. Field states, “The majority of the new communes are in the Marne Valley and in the ’satellite’ enclaves of Aube and Aisne; none especially near to the famous Grand Crus such as Avize and Le Mesnil-Sur -Oger,” considering that the vineyards from these very ’satellite’ enclaves generally produce the fruit of the lowest quality and in may cases are simply used to create still wine.  In and around Aube, much of the soil isn’t even the Cretaceous chalk for which Champagne is noted, but rather (and somewhat incidentally despite my previous train of thought) Late Jurassic, specifically, Kimmeridgian soil that gives Chablis and some Sancerre its most distinguished gout de la pierre a la fusil.  Visit Simmonet-Febvre in Chablis and taste Cremant de Bourgogne from vines grown on Kimmeridgian soil.  It’s delicious, but it is completely different in character than Champagne.