Gosset: The 2016 Vintage, How to Blend Wine & Gosset ‘Personal Cuvée’?!

Founded in 1584, Champagne Gosset is the oldest house in Champagne

Odilon de Varine is a no-nonsense winemaker. With over 10 years experience at Champagne Gosset as deputy managing director, he assumed the role of cellar master just 9 months ago following the untimely death of Jean-Pierre Mareigner (whose reign spanned over three decades) and appears to have taken the appointment in his stride. Looking more like a multitasking French father of four rather than Chef de Cave of the oldest house in Champagne, he greeted us in casual wear, keen to begin the tasting. He gives the impression of a hands-on winemaker who prefers time spent in the winery amidst the barrels, tanks and other tools of his trade, rather than on front-of-house marketing. A carpenter of wine, Odilon’s passion as a creator is clear and there is something humbling about his reluctance to forcibly impress his knowledge upon others.

We visited the winery in Épernay immediately following a tasting at Moët et Chandon. The scale of operations between the two couldn’t be more contrasting – now producing 1.3 million bottles annually, Gosset has grown considerably since new management took over in 1994 – but compared with Moët’s 30 million bottle production, Champagne Gosset is still a relatively small house. Exporting 30% of their Champagne to over 70 countries, this smaller production allows Gosset to concentrate on quality rather than quantity.

10 of Gosset’s 162 base wines for 2016

2016 Vins Clairs

Odilon’s straightforward approach suited us just fine – we visited Gosset with Essi Avellan MW during the middle of our busiest day in Champagne and consequently had less than 2 hours to taste the base wines. After a brief introduction to the 2016 vintage, Odilon informed us he’d selected 10 of the 162 base wines for 2016 for us to taste – one Pinot Meunier, one blend of PM and PN, three Pinot Noir’s and five Chardonnay’s.

When tasting Vins Clairs, Odilon is characteristically efficient. “When it comes to blending, you are balancing many factors… it is difficult if you have too many words,” he told us. Therefore when tasting base wines, he is making just four main assessments at this stage. “We are looking at freshness, attack, length and body… rating them high, medium or low,” Odilon explained.

2016 Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir base wines

Pinot Meunier

Chamery Montagne de Reims
Loads of strawberry and quite delicate. Lovely peach in the background. Loads of fruitiness on the nose and great acidity.

Cumières Vallée de la Marne
A mixture of PM and PN – new theory of blending the Cru rather than the grapes. Hint reductive at present, good mid-palate and loads of richer fruits like cherry and blackberry. Medium length.

Colour variation between the Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir vins clairs

Pinot Noir

Aÿ Vallée de la Marne
This was put on the Chardonnay lees after fermentation,

Ambonnay Montagne de Reims
Underwent batonnage. Quite meaty and rich on the nose with black fruit evident. Delicate but very high quality. Great mouth-feel.

Verzy Montagne de Reims
Very ripe fruit when brought to the press, so relatively untreated – just pressed and left to ferment. Has wild strawberries and incredible acidity. Lots of experimentation going on here.

2016 Chardonnay base wines

Chardonnay

Villers-Marmery Montagne de Reims
One of the few Chardonnay vineyards from the Pinot dominated Montagne de Reims. Incredible freshness. Seems quite soft already and offers so much ripe apple. Really great mouth-feel – 10% is used in the Blanc de Blancs.

Vertus Côte des Blancs
Loads of apple and pear, some lemon and lots of richness.

Avize Côte des Blancs
Very expressive nose! Like burnt oak – very toasty and smoky, a real richness again here.

Le Mesnil-sur-Oger Côte des Blancs
Round and fat, this has great structure. Lots of acidity and a slight saltiness. Really razor sharp – could drink this now!

Oger Côte des Blancs
Hints of pear and apple, this is complete and compact. Also very good.

Colour variation between the Chardonnay’s

Once we’d tasted all of the base wines on show, Essi decided to test her hand at winemaking and blended her own cuvée with the wines available. Using a generous weight of Mesnil and Avize, her blend was Chardonnay dominant and whilst not bad, it was a little soft for Odilon’s liking. This prompted Odilon into spontaneous assemblage, creating a blend faster than we could record the ingredients. With ease, he created a wine with great structure and elegance – one he mused was for ageing.

This was a fun experiment and a practice Essi adopted at later tastings. Odilon eventually revealed it was actually an experience Champagne Gosset will soon be marketing to consumers – the opportunity to create your own personal cuvée! A great idea, but one that will come with a cost – a minimum of 40 magnums must be ordered and whilst jeroboams can also be made, Gosset will not be offering smaller formats (bottles or half-bottles) to be produced.

The current Champagne Gosset range

Overall, it was an interesting showing for the Gosset base wines. Odilon’s pragmatic and innovative experiments – blending the Cru rather than the grapes, adding Chardonnay lees to Pinot Noir wine to absorb the colour – are steering the house in an exciting direction. Commenting on 2016’s potential, Odilon said: “It is a very good year to make a non-vintage. I’m not sure we will see a vintage, but that can be a good thing – in vintage years, NV’s suffer.”