We live in the era of standardization, is it good or bad? We propose to deal with this with the example of champagne wines. Champagne from Champagne is not just a phrase of wine fans, sommeliers, or sellers in liquor stores, it is a rule enshrined in 1891, which, in our opinion, hides the "rabbit hole". What is happening today with the world of champagne wines, let's try to figure it out in this article.

                                                                                                                                                                                   Style
Nowadays, in such countries as Great Britain, the USA, and Japan, in wine lists you can often find several pages of champagne from recoltans (Récoltant manipulant, RM are small Champagne producers who, unlike merchants who work with purchased grapes, make wine from grapes from their vineyards, on their property, and under their trademark), and only one page of large champagne houses. By the way, the countries were not chosen by chance, this trio consumes almost half of the exported sparkling wines.

Many Champagne Houses go out of their way to maintain style each year so that the customer knows exactly what they are getting in the glass. It's a lot of work, it's not easy to produce wine in the same style year after year. But what is the downside of this approach? Remember your favorite wine, and now imagine it in a year, five years, or ten years, will you get the same pleasure from it in 10 years? Many things quickly become boring to us and do not seem as desirable and passionate as before. In part, it was this situation that helped recoltants gain momentum. Many of them do not have a repetitive aroma and taste, each year is unique and evokes new emotions. A distinctive feature of rekoltants is their approach to wine production. These guys focus their efforts on the vineyard, the terroir. Unlike large Champagne Houses, where the main part of the work is carried out at the winery from purchased grapes, recoltants produce wines from their vineyards with minimal interference in the winemaking process. Here, familiar organics and biodynamics come into play, this approach allows the maximum expression of varietal and terroir features. Quite an important feature is the wines produced from a single grape variety. As a rule, in the main line, large champagne houses try to avoid this approach and produce assemblage wines from a mixture of different years. This approach allows the production of wines of stable quality and the same type of flavor profile. Perhaps one of the main trends in recent years is a low dose or no dose at all. Increasingly, labels appear in such names as Brut Nature, Extra Brut, and Non-Dosage. Recoltants are increasingly moving away from the "Brut" category, believing that the addition of tirage liquor only hinders the disclosure of the flavor profile. And as a result, we will see the word “Brut” on the labels of champagnes less and less.

There are more than 16,000 winemakers and 320 Champagne Houses in the Champagne region. This does not mean that all recoltants produce wines of outstanding quality, there are also "stars" and idols here. Everything is here, as in football, the first, second, and third leagues, only the Champions League championship is not held. When choosing a small producer on the shelf, you have to completely trust the winemaker, and as a rule, such a bet pays good dividends in the form of incredible experiences. One such producer is Larmandier-Bernier, which specializes in the production of Grand and Premier Cru champagnes from the Côte de Blancs. Most wines are categorized as Extra Brut. Champagne Larmandieu-Bernier is one of the purest and most attractive wines produced in this region today. This is a real gem in the wine collection. You have no idea how happy we are to see such a recoltant in our assortment.

"what's the difference"

Champagne is hundreds of years of experimentation, the search for the best terroirs, and winemaking practices. Could all this affect the quality and uniqueness of the wines, the answer is yes. In the Middle Ages, Champagne winemaking developed, as in many other regions, thanks to the monasteries that grew grapes for religious ceremonies. Previously, champagne wines were different, or rather still, and the bubbles were considered a defect. What is the secret of Champagne? One of them is limestone soils of chalk character. It is thanks to them that a distinct minerality appears in the wine. With global warming, it has become easier to cultivate grapes, but earlier the climate in Champagne was much colder and wetter. Growing grapes here has always been a difficult task, which is why the vast majority of all champagne wines are assemblages of different years. Many will have a question, well, well, but now many can make sparkling wine using the same technologies and from the same varieties, etc., so why overpay? As a general rule, we recommend taking a bottle of Champagne from a recoltant and allowing any sparkling made traditionally and comparing them. Can you feel the difference? We think the answer is obvious. That is why Champagne can only come from the Champagne region. In conclusion, I would like to note that it is very simple to understand whether a wine is good or not: you just need to ask yourself the question of whether you enjoy it or not...