La Fête du Champagne 2020
by the team
Wednesday, October 28, 2020
Thank you to everyone that tuned in from your home to join us at La Fête 2020. Various events and the self-guided Grand Tasting made for a celebration of bubbles that spanned 10 days. So you know, if you purchased access to the virtual self-guided Grand Tasting, that content will be accessible for you to come back to every time you open a bottle of Champagne, use it as a reference, a buying guide for entertaining or collecting or at our next Club Member BYO.
We wanted to share with you some of our favorite moments of the live webinars from the festival. If you were unable to attend one of the events and would like to catch a recording, please reach out to Justine.
NEXT GENERATION GROWERS with Mathilde Margaine, Cédric Moussé, Guillaume Sergent, and Aurélien Suenen
We had a great time Sunday 10/18 with four of Champagne’s brightest young récoltant-manipulants or grower-producers: Mathilde Margaine of A. Margaine in Villers-Marmery, Cédric Moussé of Moussé-Fils in Cuisles, Guillaume Sergent in Vrigny, and Aurélien Suenen in Cramant.
Peter Liem led the discussion, focusing on the quartet’s varied backgrounds, experiences with their terroirs across Champagne, and vision of the region’s future.
Global warming was a big topic, as it was throughout La Fête 2020, and the growers all agreed that while for the moment it was easier to make great terroir-driven wines in a warming Champagne, there were many other considerations that they had to think about dealing with in the coming years.
A highlight was a Segway tour with Cédric through his vineyards, ending at his deceivingly modern winery where he showed jars of different kinds of sulfur, proclaiming the yellowish natural volcanic sulfur to be superior as its greater protective capacity allows less to be used at bottling.
KRUG AND THE CUISINE OF L’ASSIETTE CHAMPENOISE WITH OLIVIER KRUG AND CHEF ARNAUD LALLEMENT - on Saturday 10/24 we zoomed into L’Assiette Champenoise for a delicious discussion led by Daniel, with Olivier Krug, Chef Arnaud Lallement and the chef’s son Brice Lallement, who is the next generation at L’Assiette Champenoise. With the COVID situation in France, there is a government mandated curfew which means that our 12pm event was smack in the middle of their service. We are incredibly grateful that Chef Lallement was able to dedicate his time to be with us. His commitment to his guests in the dining room was evident, as he was in and out of the kitchen throughout the event. Olivier Krug shared stories, tasting impressions and thoughts on the pairings while the chefs presented the dishes and shared secrets to their sauces, the composition of each dish and how the Champagne in their glasses impacted the overall experience and enjoyment of the pairings. It was a mouthwatering conversation, alive and fun. What came through most clearly was the mutual respect and admiration between Olivier and Chef Arnaud and their shared pleasure around each others’ craft. Brice was a fantastic edition to the event as a translator and additional voice with great commentary, referring to his dad’s methods and techniques that have obviously influenced him, and are allowing him to come into his own at L’Assiette Champenoise.
LA TRANSMISSION - A Contemporary Vision of Champagne with Anne Malassagne of AR Lenoble, Maggie Henriquez of Krug, Mélanie Tarlant of Tarlant, and Charline Drappier of Drappier
To end La Fête du Champagne, on Sunday 10/25, we had a chance to talk to four of the nine women from La Transmission, Femmes en Champagne, an organization of women who collaborate on and promote their modern, inclusive vision of Champagne. The discussion was moderated by Ariel Arce, the NYC-based restaurateur and owner of Air’s Champagne Parlor, Niche Niche, and Tokyo Record Bar. It was an extremely lively discussion, and the friendship and camaraderie were palpable through our screens with lots of cheering and laughter.
Anne, Maggie, Mélanie and Charline each spoke about their Champagne houses, how they got involved with their work, and their personal relationship with Champagne.
The four women were together in Paris and insisted on tasting Champagnes made by winemakers from La Transmission who were not present, in order to show their solidarity and spirit of togetherness. They each represented a Champagne, and the four Champagnes tasted were:
Champagne Boizel Grand Vintage 2008
Champagne Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Rosé 2007
Champagne Bruno Paillard Dosage Zéro NV
Champagne Philippe Gonet TER Blanc de Blancs NV.
Thanks to the time difference, it was “apéro time” in France and watching the quartet enjoy little snacks with the Champagnes made us all quite envious of them!
A Tasting and Conversation with Anselme & Guillaume Selosse
Trying to describe the philosophy of Anselme Selosse is no easy task. The Champagne winemaker who has inspired so many younger producers around him talks about his wine, the land, the history and other topics with the amazement of a child. When you listen to him, it takes a second to enter his world that he describes with colorful images. For example, you can listen to him comparing himself as the butler of Mother Nature. He would also talk about how the lees are to the wine what the placenta is to the baby in the womb…
It took a while for the “madman of Avize”, as some of his narrow-minded neighbors called him, to gain his current status of superstar. Anselme never fit in any category. For example, he did join the biodynamic movement but then quickly decide to give it up as the rigidity of protocol didn’t meet his own beliefs.
Just like the man, his wines are “hors-classe” and the limited production made his bottles incredibly hard to find, creating a real cult for his work. During a conference in London, Anselme, with his particular quirkiness, explained to an audience of admirers that his champagnes had square bubbles. What happened next amazed him as the attendees lifted their glass to see if that was the case!
On October 17th, we opened the festivities of a very unusual La Fête du Champagne with an exclusive live discussion with Anselme and his son Guillaume. Peter Liem moderated this very inspiring interview and was able through his questions to extract the essence of the winemaker’s ideology. The presence of Guillaume, even if he was a little more reserved, gave us a precious and insightful idea of the direction the domaine is taking with the smooth transition from father to son. The future is looking bright with Guillaume, an equally talented winemaker, with his own personality.
Lastly, I was as honored as I was nervous to translate for Anselme and Guillaume and I am still not quite sure where these 90 minutes went.