Wine of the Week: Henri Goutorbe Brut Spécial Club 2002

I’ve just arrived back home in Champagne this evening, slightly disoriented from my voyage — I’d momentarily even forgotten that it was Friday and time for a Wine of the Week. Fortunately, I am drinking a fine bottle from Henri Goutorbe as a homecoming reward to myself (for what exactly I’m not sure, but neither do I care, as the intake of champagne seems to be my primary goal this evening). This actually happened to be the first bottle that I saw upon walking into my cellar, and seemed as good a wine as any to drink right now. Unsurprisingly, it also happens to be terrifically delicious.

Goutorbe is one of the most prominent grower estates in the village of Aÿ, although the Goutorbe family is equally as well-known for being pépiniéristes, or nurserymen for the propagation of vine cuttings. Today the Goutorbes own about 20 hectares of vines in the Grande Vallée de la Marne, and their rosé, millésime and Spécial Club are always pure Aÿ grand cru.

Goutorbe’s Spécial Club is always composed of roughly 70 percent pinot noir and 30 percent chardonnay, and is vinified entirely in stainless steel. The 2002 shows a warm, inviting nose of mocha, raspberries and grilled nuts, demonstrating both ampleness of fragrance and harmony of balance. On the palate it turns more primary in flavor, with aromas ranging from strawberry and yellow peach to kumquat and sweet apple, picking up a hint of fresh ginger and turning much more red fruit-dominated the longer the bottle is open. It has a rich texture, feeling almost velvety even though the underlying acidity is relatively prominent, and the aromas expand on the finish with bold presence and depth. While it’s drinking well right now for a 2002, it promises to gain in complexity with a few more years in the cellar — there’s a kernel of concentrated flavor on the back end that feels youthful and tightly wound, as if preserving a little time capsule for the future.

For those of you in the United States, Henri Goutorbe is represented by Terry Theise Selections/Michael Skurnik Wines, in Syosset, NY. The good people at Skurnik tell me that they’re still working with the 2000, which is also a lovely wine — it shares a familial resemblance but as I recall, it feels a little bigger and more muscular to me, while the 2002 shows a bit more finesse and detail. I don’t know when you might see the 2002, but for now, the 2000 is suggested as retailing for $87.

Disgorging Big Bottles

This morning at Champagne Gosset in Aÿ they were disgorging jeroboams. These are all disgorged in the traditional way, employing a process not all that different from how it’s been done for over a hundred years. The corks are loosened with a special machine (it looks like something out of Guantanamo, but it’s really just a giant corkscrew), then disgorged by hand, which requires considerable strength and skill. They’re topped up with the same wine, then the cork and cage are both affixed by hand as well. These guys have 2,000 of these things to do, which is no small feat: “The demand for big bottles has never been so high,” says Philippe Manfredini, export director for Gosset. “In the last three years, it’s been crazy.” Here are some photos of the process:

Wine of the Week: Gaston Chiquet Blanc de Blancs d’Aÿ

Some people still refuse to accept the idea of terroir in Champagne, or of terroir being expressed in the wines of Champagne. Most often this results from a lack of experience and understanding of the region. Tasting here in Champagne, I see terroir being expressed every day, whether I’m looking for it or not.

The village of Aÿ has been renowned for its wines since the 15th century, when it was the favored wine of the court of France. Today it’s regarded as one of the greatest villages for pinot noir in the region (some people, myself included, believe that Aÿ is capable of producing the very greatest pinot noir in Champagne). Its wines are often the most complete of Champagne's pinots, showing a marvelous complexity and dimension of fruit allied with striking purity and elegance—if Aÿ were in Burgundy, it might be Vosne-Romanée.

And yet, as much as I love the pinots of Aÿ, one of the wines that has taught me the most about the commune’s terroir over the years is Gaston Chiquet’s Blanc de Blancs d’Aÿ, made from pure chardonnay. A selection from five parcels on the western side of the village planted largely with old vines, it isn’t a single-vineyard wine, but that doesn’t make it any less expressive of place. In fact, the imprint of terroir is much stronger in this wine than that of variety—often when I taste this I feel that it relates more to Aÿ pinots than it does to chardonnay from other villages. In addition, I’ve found that this chardonnay helps me to understand Aÿ’s pinots better, through a commonality of character and personality. As importer Terry Thiese puts it, this wine “isn’t so much a variant on chardonnay as it is another dialect of Aÿ.”

The Blanc de Blancs d’Aÿ is generally from a single vintage, although it doesn’t carry the vintage date on the label. (Chiquet holds back magnums for late release, which are labeled as vintage.) The current release is the 2004, which combines a broad, Marne-influenced richness with the characteristic focus and precision of the vintage. Compared to wines from the Côte des Blancs, this is rounder and more ample, reflecting Aÿ’s calcareous clay soils and south-facing exposition. While it carries a strong mineral signature, especially on the long and fragrant finish, it isn’t the pure, brilliant chalkiness of the Côte des Blancs, but rather a softer, earthier stoniness. It’s not unlike comparing the minerality of the Nahe to the intense slate of the Mosel. And like chardonnay from anywhere in Champagne, this ages superbly well—if you can find the 1998 in magnum currently on the market, it’s just beginning to reveal an intense complexity and depth, its soil character even more amplified and incisive than it was in its youth. It should continue to develop for another decade at least. Gaston Chiquet is imported into the United States by Terry Theise Selections/Michael Skurnik Wines, Syosset, NY.

Training Vines in Champagne: Chardonnay

Nicolas Chiquet cites three major functions of a pruning system: it controls yields; it separates the bunches to increase ripeness and provide aeration; and it adapts the vine to the various sorts of mechanized labor that occur between the rows. In Champagne, chardonnay is largely trained in a system called la taille en Chablis. Whether this actually has anything to do with the region of Chablis or not, I don’t really know, but that’s what it’s called. Like the cordon du Royat, the Chablis involves short canes on a long charpente, or branch, although here there are multiple branches instead of one long, horizontal one.


Here you can see a young chardonnay vine in the vineyard of La Range aux Pierres in Aÿ, a parcel on the upper slope that is often included in Gaston Chiquet’s Blanc de Blancs d’Aÿ. It’s just been pruned so it’s sort of splayed out haphazardly right now, but the individual branches will eventually be tied down to the wires. As the branches must be at least 30 centimeters apart from each other, the allowed number of branches depends on the spacing of the vines. The maximum spacing is 1.5 meters between vines, which allows for five branches; in this vineyard Chiquet has planted vines one meter apart, and so this vine has only three branches. Each branch supports one cane at its end, which is allowed five buds.

This is a photo of an older vine in the same vineyard, which for whatever reason has only two charpentes instead of three:


Chiquet uses the Chablis system for all of his meunier as well as chardonnay, but there is another system commonly used for meunier called Vallée de la Marne. I’ll try to take a photo of that to post tomorrow.

Training Vines in Champagne: Pinot Noir

Champagne, as you know, is largely made from three different grape varieties. Each variety tends to prefer a slightly different terroir, and each gets trained in a different way to adapt to the needs of the variety and to best take advantage of the local environment. Right now, in the wintertime when the vines are pruned back and there isn’t any foliage, it’s easy to see the structures of the different training systems. This week I asked Nicolas Chiquet of Champagne Gaston Chiquet to take me out into the vines. (He’s the guy in the photo, as you might have guessed.)

The photo below shows a pinot noir vine in the vineyard of Vauzelle in Aÿ, which is a particularly excellent plot of land. Pinot noir likes south-facing slopes with plenty of sun, and thrives in dry, chalky soils (it hates humid, clay-rich soils, such as those in the western Vallée de la Marne). Aÿ fits both of these conditions perfectly, which is why it’s potentially the greatest pinot village in all of Champagne.


Pinot noir in Champagne is always trained in the cordon du Royat, involving a long, horizontal charpente, or branch, at a maximum height of 60 centimeters above the ground, with several spurs that produces fruit-bearing canes. The canes, or coursons, must be spaced at least 15 centimeters apart to provide sufficient aeration, and each is allowed to have two buds, while on the prolongement (the short cane that you can see on the very end of the cordon—I don’t know what we call this in English, but maybe you do) there are four buds allowed. The main branch can be renewed by a second one that you can see clearly in this example—as it grows it will be trained along the same wire as the old wood, and can eventually replace it. Comparatively speaking, pinot noir is of relatively low vigor, but the yields must be carefully managed in order to produce high quality wine, and the cordon du Royat helps maximize ripeness while keeping yields under control.

Chardonnay, on the other hand, gets treated in a completely different manner—I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.