Charles Heidsieck Champagne ranks among the most prestigious Champagne wines, largely due to the house's style, which is characterized by structured and creamy wines. Charles Heidsieck founded his own champagne company in 1851, and from the beginning, he aimed for the highest quality. Charles Heidsieck is the smallest Champagne producer on the prestigious list of the best Champagne houses, Les Grand Marques, with an annual production of just over one million bottles. That may seem like quite a large number, but if you compare that to the colossal thirty million bottles of Veuve Clicquot, you can see how tiny Charles Heidsieck is.
Against All Odds...
Charles was the first to bring champagne to the American market and became so famous that he was welcomed into the high society of New York. However, during the Civil War Charles was imprisoned as a French spy, and upon his release he went bankrupt because his agent in America robbed him, and for ten years Charles Heidsieck was penniless. However, luck was on Charles's side, the brother of his American agent was so upset about what had happened to Charles Heidsieck that he left a large tract of farmland in western America as an inheritance. This small village and surrounding land turned out to be about one-third of what was soon to become the richest city in the American West, Denver.
Charles Heidsieck's specialty was his foresight, in 1852 Heidsieck invested in underground chalk cellars in the center of Rheims. The cellars, which are still part of the house, are 18 meters deep and have a constant temperature and humidity - they were used to age wines for almost 150 years. The cellars were less than 100 meters from the German front line during the First World War, and they managed to survive even though 80 percent of Reims was destroyed.
Uncompromising style
Today, Charles Heidsieck is a premium sparkling wine producer. Here they use a whopping twelve years of reserve wine, which means that twelve different vintages go into the bottle and are turned into non-vintage positions. This uncompromising style has been described by other winemakers as "insane" and "not commercially viable" because of the considerable effort that must be put into the wine to produce it from so many vintages, not to mention the extra cost, but this is exactly the style that Charles Heidsieck insisted on. The house produces classic brut and rosé non-vintage wines, aged for three years, about 20 months longer than is legally required for non-vintage Champagne wines. There are also several vintage expressions in the range. Both Brut and Rosé Millesime are a blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes from prestigious vineyards. Both wines are aged in chalk cellars for around 12 years. Charles Heidsieck Champagne is not about generous advertising campaigns, it is about taste and incredible style that falls in love from the first sip.