Results of the Champagne Masters released

The results of db‘s first Champagne Masters competition has highlighted the impressive quality-to-price ratio available in the vintage category.

A flight of 13 vintage Champagnes yielded five Masters – the competition’s highest accolade – and four gold medals, with those from the 2000 and 2002 harvests scoring particularly highly.

Among the Masters were the relatively inexpensive Champagne de Castelnau 2000 and Besserat de Bellefon Cuvée des Moines Brut Millésime 2002, a house owned by Lanson International.

In the non-vintage category over £30, the Besserat de Bellefon brand also performed well, gaining the only gold in this category for its Cuvée des Moines Extra Brut.

The special blend was first introduced in 1930 as Champagne to accompany food, and has a slightly lower pressure with small, fine bubbles, while the Extra Brut is a more recent edition to the range, with a lower dosage.

Among the non-vintage Champagnes below £30, it was the Sunday Times Wine Club Brut that gained a gold, along with Piper-Heidsieck, Jacquart’s Brut Mosaique and Jean Moutardier’s cuvée Carte d’Or.

The latter wine, containing as much as 80% Pinot Meunier, proves the potential of this grape, which in the right sites, and with careful management, can produce Champagnes of great quality, despite its reputation as a lesser component in the blend.

However, the highest scores of the day were awarded to two wines in the prestige cuvée category, and it was the oldest wine of the tasting, Charles Heidsieck Blanc des Millénaires 1995, which received a unanimous Master rating, as well as Deutz’s Cuvée Amour de Deutz 2002.

The latter award was testament to both the quality of this Champagne house and the vintage – it was a harvest that produced wines of both richness and refinement.

Elsewhere, interestingly, the rosé category, which is so popular among consumers worldwide, yielded fewer top medals, with the Deutz Cuvée William performing the best, with a silver, along with Meunier & Cie – a NV rosé that stood out for its freshness and intensity.

Overall, the quality of the Champagnes was extremely high, and the concentration of Masters in the vintage sub-category showed how much added richness and character there is for a relatively small rise in price – vintage Champagnes tend to average around £10 more than the non-vintage entry point to the brand.

Nevertheless, sadly, this is still a part of Champagne that seems little understood, or widely demanded, with the pretty pink of rosé and show of prestige cuvée more enticing for those willing to spend large sums on their bubbly.

The judges

The judges were selected for their general wine tasting experience, high regard in the trade, as well as their expertise in the Champagne sector. We chose a range of personalities to reflect different sectors, be it the on-trade and off-trade, mainstream retail and specialist independent, as well as fine wine. We also invited Michael Edwards to join the panel, a respected and award-winning Champagne writer and contributor to the drinks business.

The judges were:

Patrick Schmitt, editor, the drinks business
Anthony Foster MW, director/buyer, Bonhote Foster
Helen McEvoy, senior buyer, Laithwaites Wine
Michael Edwards, journalist/ Champagne expert
Nicola Arcedeckne-Butler MW, buying director, Private Cellar (chair)
Christine Parkinson, group wine buyer, Hakkasan
Marcel Orford Williams, wine/Champagne buyer, The Wine Society
Jamie Hutchinson, owner, The Sampler
Emma Dawson, wine buyer, Marks & Spencer

The results in full:

CHAMPAGNE MASTERS 2011: Non Vintage (Non vintage £30+)

CHAMPAGNE MASTERS 2011: Non Vintage (£20-£30)

CHAMPAGNE MASTERS 2011: Vintage (£30+)

CHAMPAGNE MASTERS 2011: Vintage (£20-£30)

CHAMPAGNE MASTERS 2011: Rosé (£30+)

CHAMPAGNE MASTERS 2011: Prestige Cuvée

About the Champagne Masters

The Champagne Masters is a competition conceived and managed by the drinks business and an extension of its successful Masters series for spirits. The competition is exclusively for Champagne and in 2011, the first year of the Champagne Masters, almost 100 entries were judged by a selection of highly experienced tasters using Riedel Chianti/Riesling glasses supplied by Sensible Wine Services (see above for the list of judges). The top Champagnes were awarded Gold, Silver or Bronze medals according to their result, and those Champagnes that stood out as being outstanding received the ultimate accolade – the title of Champagne Master. The Champagnes were tasted over the course of one day at the Institute of Masters of Wine’s offices in Fitzroy Square, London, W1.

Design and Packaging

As part of the inaugural Champagne Masters competition we also distributed awards to those products which entered a category based entirely on the look of the bottle, not the taste of the product. This aspect of the awards, dubbed “design and packaging”, saw judges score the Champagnes for “shelf stand-out” as well as suitability for their target audience and the attractiveness of the design. Finally, judges were asked to assess the quality of the execution, including foils, paper feel and weight, and how well labels and finishes were applied. Lanson’s recently redesigned rosé was deemed the most outstanding of the entries, and scored highly for its quality and standout, as well as its obvious appeal to women, the core target market of non-vintage rosé. This Champagne house’s much more masculine Extra Age also scored well for its finish and striking, upmarket appearance. Meanwhile, Pannier’s elegant skittle-shaped bottles were widely praised for their luxury feel.

CHAMPAGNE MASTERS 2011: Design & Packaging