Moët & Chandon: 2017 Vins Clairs and Grand Vintage Collection 2002 & 1990

“The 2017 harvest was very challenging,” began Amine Ghanem, winemaker at Moët & Chandon and host of our vins clairs tasting. The growing seasons started badly for Moët with spring frosts damaging 25% of the buds in their vineyards. Although continuous warm and hot weather from mid-May to late-July gave them hope of having a good vintage, unexpected hail, rain and high temperatures throughout August caused botrytis to spread.

Due to the ripeness of the grapes, Moët were forced to start picking much earlier than usual. “Aside from 2003, this was the earliest harvest since the 1950s… our first vineyards were picked on 23rd August,” Ghanem told us. As the botrytis spread, sorting the grapes was especially important in 2017 and many were left on the ground. This, coupled with the 25% loss in springtime, resulted in a very low yield.

Moët approach the tasting and blending of vins clairs quite differently to other houses. Rather than blend by village, they blend by quality. To achieve this, they use a system that has been in place at Moët since the 1960s. First, more than ten winemakers taste all of the base wines (over 800) and rate them on an ABC scale. Within the A rating, there is also the option of A+ and A++ grades for particularly impressive wines.

Those rated C are immediately discarded, whilst the A’s and B’s go forward for re-tasting, after which more may be rejected. Eventually, the initial 800 base wines are reduced to around 500, which are then used in the blending process (around 120 wines are used in the Moët & Chandon Impérial NV blend alone). In 2017 however, 650 different base wines entered the first round of tasting. Ghanem explained that this rating system is relative to the vintage and is used to compare between wines from that year only – i.e. an A+ rated wine from 2002 would likely be much better than an A+ rated wine from 2017.

Vins Clairs 2017

We started with Pinot Meunier, a grape variety with unique prominence in Moët’s non-vintage champagne. “In 2017, Pinot Meunier was the most damaged grape variety,” Ghanem said. “It wasn’t really ripe, there was high acidity and lots of dusty aromas,” he added. Where botrytis was found, the grapes were sorted and the batches were fermented separately and treated with bentonite, a fining agent which cleanses the wine. Although successful in isolating the Pinot Meunier with botrytis character, not all of the wines could be saved and many were still discarded. “We will use the Pinot Meunier as soon as possible… it will grow tired with time,” Ghanem told us.

The Pinot Noir was also quite damaged last year, although with some sorting and discarding there were some good batches – those from the south fared particularly well. The first one we tasted was from the Aube, about 50km south of Reims. With a balanced and vibrant acidity, Ghanem described it as “easy to use” and indeed it has been put into the 2017 Imperial NV blend. “Our strategy this year is to not touch the reserve wines. We will try to use up the 2017s, as they will mature early,” he said.

The second Pinot Noir we tasted was from the Vallée de la Marne. Very pale, almost like a Chardonnay in colour, this had incredibly complex aromas – a consequence of careful selection in the vineyards, according to Ghanem. “This would be an A/A+ wine,” he told us. Contrary to their strategy, this Pinot Noir – being one of the best of the year – will likely end up in the reserves. “We need some reserves from 2017… they are the first priority,” Ghanem added.

To finish our still wine tasting, we sampled two red wines produced using two very different winemaking techniques: thermovinification and maceration. Thermovinification involves heating grapes and must to near-boiling temperatures prior to fermentation. This promotes the rapid extraction of colour and tannins, creating an intensely aromatic and coloured juice. Although it has been around for decades, thermovinification has recently surfaced in Champagne – Moët themselves only began experimenting in 2015. The wine itself had an intriguing nose of red roses and banana and Ghanem revealed it was rated B.

The second red wine had undergone the standard 8-10 day maceration process to extract the coloured juice from the grape skin. “The red grapes from the Côte des Bar were of good quality and quantity… the sunshine of the year,” Ghanem said. Due to the intensity of the fruit, Moët used a large amount of maceration and less red wines in this year’s Rosé Imperial NV to get the same colour.

Summarising the vintage, Ghanem said it was difficult but a good learning experience for the younger winemakers. “The older members of the winemaking team had the experience to keep the youngsters calm,” he added with a smile. Given the changing climate in Champagne, Ghanem believes unpredictable vintages like 2017 may become more frequent, although he was quick to acknowledge that Moët – with the largest amount of land and reserve wines – could survive even the most difficult low-yield and low-quality years. “Having 1,200 hectares is our saviour,” he said.

“We are also the only laboratory to analyse so precisely,” Ghanem told us. By way of an example, the latest scientific innovation at Moët & Chandon is to use thermal imagery to identify signs of rot and maturation in the grapes. This way, they can sort the grapes into A and B graded parcels before even producing or tasting the wine. Despite all their impressive technology, there will still be no vintage Moët in 2017. “Vintage is just 5% of our production… there is no need to force it if the quality is not there.”

Champagne

To conclude our visit, we tasted some finished champagnes. When Moët & Chandon release a current vintage, they also release two older vintages of a similar style as part of their Grand Vintage Collection. We therefore sampled the recently released Moët & Chandon Grand Vintage 2009 & Grand Vintage Rosé 2009, alongside their paired Grand Vintage Collections: 2002 and 1990.