Vintage Champagne for Friday the 13th

I don't drink much vintage Champagne. Let's face it--until this year when I decided to get to know growers' champagne I didn't drink much Champagne at all, and even now it's a treat that gets poured into a flute only occasionally.

So when I saw a bottle of 1998 Jean-Noël Haton Champagne Brut peeking out from behind a $6 bottle of Spanish Macabeo at my beloved Chronicle Wine Cellar, I had to take it home with me. The fact that it was $19.95 only made it that much sweeter, and I felt very smug after Gus (one of the owners) said rather mournfully that he hadn't known there was still a bottle left.

It's been hard to find out very much about this branch of the Haton family and their winemaking. I know from one online source that Octave Haton founded the company in the town of Damery in 1928, and it is his great-grandson, Jean-Noel, who now runs the business and tends the family's 13 hectares. The area is known for its Pinot Noir, and only Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier are used in the wine.

What did I think? I loved the chubby, Taittinger-style bottle that was much wider at the bottom than it was at the top. I was then struck by the deep gold color, which is not typical of NV Champagnes that I've tried. The color suggested age to me, just the way antique lace gets a shade or two darker over time. The mousse or foam on the top of the poured glass dissipated quickly, and there was an active, but not abundant, bead or bubble. This was not one of those wines where zillions of bubbles tickled your nose. What did tickle your nose were aromas of bread, yeast, and chalky stone. The flavors that followed were bready and intense, with toasted notes and a crisp aftertaste.

This was an excellent QPR Champagne--and I suspect I would have felt that way even if the wine had cost about twice as much. Sadly, I've not been able to find any more of it online, so unless you've got a bottle in the cellar you're going to have to take my word for it. However, D&M Wines in San Francisco stocks two other Haton Champagnes that are under $40, and Chicago Lake Liquors has the Brut NV (under $25) and the Rose NV (under $35) if you are willing to purchase a whole case.

Not a standard NV bubbly, by any stretch of the imagination, but a wine that seemed like something that Flappers would have sipped during wild parties in the 1920s, when the Haton's family business was started. If this is vintage Champagne--I love it.

My Favorite Grower Champagne (So Far)

I'm starting to get bitten by the grower champagne bug.

As a devoted drinker of NV Veuve Clicquot in the yellow label--which I enjoy partly because I'm never disappointed--I always get exactly what I expect when I pop the cork. While this kind of familiarity, like your favorite chair, is very comforting, it is not precisely exciting.

Drinking grower champagne is different. I'm finding that they are a pleasant surprise, and offer something unlike what I've grown to expect and love from familiar standbys like Veuve Clicquot.

My most recent foray into grower champagne came from Comte Audoin de Dampierre, which is based in Chenay. They've been making Champagne there for almost seven centuries, and produce over 200,000 bottles a year. For their top bottling, the Cuvee Prestige, this house still uses a hand made string ficelage, which was the traditional way to make sure the cork didn't pop out of the bottle because of all the pressure. The ficelage is the point of origin for the wire basket that most sparkling wine has wrapped around the cork today.

The NV Comte Audoin de Dampierre Grande Cuvee Brut was a terrific champagne for the money, and definitely represented excellent QPR in a grower champagne. ($25.95, Chronicle Wine Cellar; expect to pay between $19 and $36 online or at a retailer near you). Made from a blend of 30% Chardonnay, 40% Pinot Noir, and 10% Pinot Meunier, this was a sparkling wine that somehow managed to be both creamy and light. The wine was bright pale straw in color, and had lots of bubbles accompanied by a frothy mousse. I smelled faint aromas of bread dough and toasted brioche, which were warm and mouth-watering. When I sipped the wine I enjoyed the flavors of cream, lemon, and apples, especially with the toasted almond edge that these flavors took on after the wine slid down your throat.

This would be a perfect bottle to open when you want something special but don't want to break the bank. It's widely available, too, so keep your eyes peeled for it in your favorite wine store.

Ooh La La! Affordable French Champagne

I'm off to a late start with my project to drink more French champagne this year. It was one of my New Year's Wine Resolutions, but Italian wine and weird varieties have definitely taken center stage here at GWU$20.

Finally I managed to make bubbles my top priority, and went around the shops looking for something that wasn't a big name on sale, or my trusty (but not creative) Veuve Clicquot with the orangey-yellow label. I took some advice from the folks at Chronicle Wine Cellar, and picked up a bottle of NV Beaumont des Crayeres Brut Grande Reserve ($26.95, Chronicle Wine Cellar; available elsewhere for under $30).

Beaumont des Crayeres is actually a cooperative venture that winemakers in the Champagne region began in 1955. More than 240 "partner-members" provide grapes for the wines, often grown on very small family plots near Epernay. This combination of small plots and a single, larger house style was intriguing to me because it seemed to me (based on my very limited knowledge, to be sure) that Beaumont des Crayeres is halfway between the big Champagne houses and the smaller houses where a single grower is able to put out a very small amount of limited production wine.

The combination yields very good results, if my bottle of Grande Reserve is representative. Made from 60% Pinor Meunier, 25% Chardonnay, and 15% Pinot Noir, this was an excellent QPR Champagne for under $30. It had, as I hope the picture shows, a very dynamic small bead that filled the glass with vapor trails of bubbles. It was pale straw in color--much paler than you would expect--and had shy aromas of biscuit and citrus that you slowly emerged from the glass as it became a bit warmer. The flavors were full of bread dough, lemon, and a bit of stone. the overall impression of the wine was one of clean freshness, and every sip made you head straight back to the glass (and the bottle for more).

This wine was a definite rebuy, and if I had the space I'd buy a case and keep it on hand for a whole year's worth of impromptu celebrations. After this success, I think you can count on seeing some more Champagne reviews shortly.