Champagne’s pretenders to the throne

The dominance of Champagne is being challenged by fizz made by producers from up-and-coming regions such as England, Italy and Tasmania. Lucy Shaw takes stock of the producers that are energising the market.

While Champagne remains the undisputed emperor of sparkling wine, particularly at prestige cuvée level, and the benchmark against which all other pretenders to the throne measure themselves, the French region can’t rest on its laurels or become complacent.

It is facing increasing competition from traditional-method sparklers from across the globe. While once regarded as harmless fun, sparkling wines from England, Franciacorta, Trentodoc, Tasmania and Marlborough are starting to turn heads and lure buyers away from Champagne, particularly if they offer equal quality for significantly less money.

In a recent column, revered wine writer Andrew Jefford wrote that England is enjoying a ‘Marlborough’ moment, in that people are waking up to the fact that certain parts of the country are capable of producing a wine style whose “innate qualities seem certain to assure it classic status in the decades and centuries ahead”.

No longer a little-known enterprise skeptically dismissed by critics as an eccentricity, English sparkling wine has emerged from its chrysalis into one of the most exciting and promising developments in the wine world today.

Last October heralded a pivotal moment for English fizz when Hambledon Classic Cuvée and Nyetimber Classic Cuvée 2010 beat the likes of Pol Roger, Veuve Clicquot and Taittinger in a blind tasting in London judged by key wine critics including Jancis Robinson MW, Neal Martin of The Wine Advocate and journalist Jamie Goode, forcing naysayers to take it seriously as a wine style.

Six months later, English sparkling triumphed over Champagne once again, this time in Paris, where wines from Nyetimber and Gusbourne took the top two spots in a blind tasting organised by wine writer Matthew Jukes and the Wine and Spirit Trade Association, which was judged by some of France’s top wine critics.

“We have successfully slayed the myth that English wine cannot compete with the best in the world,” WSTA chief executive Miles Beale said when the results came out.

Just before Christmas, news emerged that Taittinger had bought a 69-hectare plot of farmland in Kent with the view to making high-end English sparkling wine under the Domaine Evremond brand.

“I’m excited about the prospect of making English sparkling wine but you have to be modest – it will be a steep learning curve. We have no preconceived ideas about what to expect. All we know is that we want to make a great wine,”

Clovis Taittinger told the drinks business at the time. “Making this wine is a gesture of friendship to the English and a way of showing our gratitude that the UK is Taittinger’s top export market. We’ll have to see what Mother Nature brings us but we want to make a wine in line with our philosophy in the elegant, pure and fresh Taittinger style,” he added.

UNTAPPED LAND

Having been the first to announce its English sparkling ambitions, Taittinger was soon followed by Pommery, which announced shortly afterwards that it had partnered with Hampshire producer Hattingley Valley on an English fizz due out in 2019. English sparkling wine production is set to double to 10 million bottles over the next four years, and applications to develop UK vineyards are at an all-time high.

But while there is extensive untapped land ripe for planting in England, Nyetimber’s winemaker, Brad Greatrix, warns that huge variation in yields from year-toyear and the unpredictability of the weather will test the nerves of even the most hardened of vintners.

“You can’t just get a map out and look for the chalk and green sand. You really have to think about all the variables, from aspect and exposure to wind speed and altitude,” he says.

Vineyards planted on chalk downland are normally at altitude, making them vulnerable to spiteful winds capable of wreaking havoc with the crop. While much has been made of the fact that England shares the same chalky soil as Champagne, Greatrix believes the long ripening season has more of an effect on the end product than terroir.

LIGHTNESS OF TOUCH

“English grapes get an extra month on the vine compared with other sparkling wine regions, and arrive at the same ripeness levels.

The long growing season allows more time for the grapes to achieve full phenolic ripeness at a lower alcohol level,” says Greatrix, who believes freshness and complexity combined with a lightness of touch is what sets English fizz apart from other traditional method sparklers.

Ian Kellett of Hambledon, meanwhile, thinks the hallmarks of English sparkling are its crispness, minerality and hedgerow aromas like elderflower and honeysuckle.

Opinions are divided as to which Champagne grape might become England’s flagship, with Jefford trumpeting the beguiling “bladed nuance and taut, stony austerity” of Chardonnay and Nyetimber championing Pinot Noir with its Pinotdominant single-vineyard sparkler Tillington, priced ambitiously at £75 a bottle.

“The Pinots don’t get the attention they deserve. It’s difficult to make in England, but when it’s good it brings such a lovely fruit presence to the wine.

You have to be patient with Chardonnay – it needs at least five years bottle age, while Pinot can be more approachable with less time on lees,” Greatrix agues.

The next step in the English sparkling wine success story will be its expansion into export markets such as the US, Japan, Germany and, whisper it, France. Brands such as Hush Heath, Gusbourne, Hambledon, Ridgeview and Chapel Down are all making inroads outside of the UK, buoyed by a growing appreciation for English sparkling’s finewine credentials – a six-bottle case of Nyetimber Classic Cuvée 2010 traded on Liv-ex for the first time this August.

Kellett of Hambledon is bullish about English sparkling’s global potential: “In 30 years from now, England will be one of the world’s leading winemakers, selling 50 million bottles a year,” he says, though admits that there are stumbling blocks ahead. “England is on the cusp of great things. However, as an industry we’re still in our infancy. One of our key challenges is going to be securing the investment required to fulfil our potential,” he says.

Also keen to cause a stir outside of its homeland is Ferrari, the flagship estate from Trentodoc – a mountainous DOC in Trentino, northern Italy, producing fresh Champagne-method fizz from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grown at high altitude. Trailblazing visionary Giulio Ferrari was one of the first to spot Chardonnay’s potential in Italy and planted his first vines at the turn of the 20th century.

The house continues to champion Chardonnay – its top drop, Giulio Ferrari Riserva del Fondatore, is made with 100% mountain Chardonnay aged for a decade on its lees. Chief executive Matteo Lunelli believes dramatic diurnal swings in temperature help set sparklers from Trentodoc apart from those made in Franciacorta; a traditional-method sparkling wine region in the northern Italian province of Brescia.

“The grapes are kissed by the sun during the day, and then cold air comes down from the mountains at night, which allows them to maintain their acidity,” he says, adding: “The grapes mature earlier in Franciacorta, so the wines have lower acidity and lower longevity. Franciacorta is silky and hits you immediately with fruity notes, while you find more sharpness, elegance and finesse in the wines from Trentodoc.”

Spearheaded by Ferrari, the region’s 40 producers are keen to make a name for themselves outside of Italy, but producing less than 3% of Champagne’s annual output means houses don’t benefit from the volumes Champagne has to play with.

“To be an important wine brand you need to have a presence around the world. Franciacorta is better known abroad than Trentodoc as it has invested in promoting itself outside of Italy,” Lunelli admits, though he believes there is room in the market for two traditional-method Italian sparklers to shine.

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“We’re collectively promoting the excellence of Italian sparkling. We need to open people’s minds to the idea that you can make luxury sparklers in Italy and link it to the concept of the Italian art of good living, be that through wine, food, cars, fashion or design.”

INJECTION OF GLAMOUR

Injecting a dose of megawatt glamour into the brand, this year Ferrari was the official sparkling wine sponsor of the Emmy Awards in Los Angeles, echoing Taittinger’s sponsorship of the BAFTAs in the UK, while older vintages of its sparklers are on pour at Massimo Bottura’s Osteria Francescana in Modena, which topped the The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list this year.

However, Ferrari still gets mistaken for a Prosecco brand, which bugs Lunelli. “Comparing Prosecco with Trentodoc is like comparing a pair of jeans with a smoking jacket,” he quips, though admits that Prosecco has helped introduce new consumers to Italian sparkling wine.

On the subject of tailoring, Bellavista, one of the best-known producers from Franciacorta, dubs itself the ‘cashmere’ of Italian sparkling. The estate has carved a niche for long-aged sparklers. Around 35% of its flagship non-vintage, Alma Gran Cuvée, is barrel fermented, and the final blend spends 40 months on its lees.

Export manager Vitaliano Tirrito calculates that each hectare of vines owned by the estate requires 300 hours of work a year. “We never push to get our wines ready for a specific release date as we want them to find their own balance.

Our foundations were laid upon longevity, as ageability is what marks out a great wine from an average wine,” he says. The house recently released a new expression – Meraviglioso – with 12 years of lees ageing.

Tirrito looks forward to the day when Franciacorta is no longer compared with Champagne and is recognised in its own right with a dedicated section on wine lists. Like Lunelli, he believes the Prosecco boom has been beneficial to sales. “Prosecco made the cake but Franciacorta is the cherry on top,” he jokes.

On the other side of the world, the coolclimate regions of Tasmania in Australia and Marlborough in New Zealand are growing their reputations as hubs for quality traditional-method sparklers. In 1995, Australian winemaker Ed Carr spotted Tasmania’s sparkling-wine potential, which led to the creation of the House of Arras, owned by wine giant Accolade.

The house’s first fizz made from 100% Tasmanian fruit – 1998 – was released in 2002. Australia’s leading wine critic, James Halliday, describes Carr as “a quietly spoken genius” and named him the country’s greatest sparkling winemaker “by some considerable distance”.

Working with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay and ageing the wines for at least four years on the lees (top drop EJ Carr Late Disgorged is aged for a decade), Carr’s goal is to make elegant, ageworthy sparklers that can compete with the best in the world. “The Arras style is about complexity, flavour persistence, finesse and critically maintaining vibrancy and freshness,” he says.

Like Greatrix of Nyetimber, Carr believes Tasmania’s cool climate and the long ripening season it allows for has a greater influence on the grapes than the soils they are grown in. “Soil types vary tremendously across Tasmania and have a significant impact on the grapes, although climate is by far the major contributor,” he says.

As we are witnessing in England, house styles are beginning to emerge in Tasmania, giving consumers the chance to align themselves with a producer that suits their personal tastes. The next step for the region will be growing its presence in export markets, as the majority of Tasmanian fizz is consumed within Australia due to limited supply and healthy domestic demand.

Flagship estate Arras is represented by Liberty Wines in the UK and has a small presence in Asia, but Tasmanian sparkling wine remains a niche offering outside of Oz. “It’s only within the last 10 years that the wines have evolved to a point of world parity in quality and have increased to significant volumes,” says Carr. He adds: “Expanding our production volumes to increase our global footprint is a key objective for us.”

Sparkling producers in Marlborough have taken the strength-in-numbers route to help get their message across, forming the ‘Méthode Marlborough’ collective a few years ago. To be part of the group your sparklers must be made in the traditional method from Champagne grapes grown in Marlborough, and the wine has to spend at least 18 months on the lees.

There are currently 10 members, including Cloudy Bay, Nautilus and No.1 Family Estate; the only winery in the region solely dedicated to sparkling wine production. Run by the Le Brun family, which boasts Champagne-making roots that stretch back to 1685, Virginie Le Brun believes the riper style of their wines compared with Champagne makes them more approachable.

“Méthode Marlborough sparklers occupy the space between Prosecco and Champagne in the market and are great gateway wines for Prosecco lovers who are willing to spend a bit more for the layers of complexity and long finish you get from traditional method fizz,” she says. “They are also brighter and less dry than Champagne.”

Widely lauded as one of New Zealand’s best traditional-method sparklers, Nautilus has been producing a Pinot Noir-dominant non-vintage brut since 1991 with a relatively low dosage of around 7g/l and three years of lees ageing.

Twenty years later, in 2011, it released a vintage rosé expression to show off Pinot Noir as a solo act.

Winemaker Clive Jones believes the “cool climate acidity” and “pretty fruit characters” achievable in Marlborough, coupled with affordable price points, make the sparklers an enticing proposition for consumers. A trickle are beginning to make it out of New Zealand to the Pacific Islands, Australia, the UK and the US, and you’ll find Nautilus on pour in Air New Zealand’s business-class cabins.

“Marlborough’s sparkling producers have tended to live in the shadow of Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir but we have a great story to tell,” enthuses Carr.

REPUTATION

While England, Trentodoc, Franciacorta, Tasmania and Marlborough will never be able to compete with Champagne’s annual production of 300 million bottles, the regions are quietly gaining a reputation for the quality of their sparkling wines.

So far, domestic demand has been sufficient to shift supply, but as desire grows to build individual brands on a global scale, spurred by an unquenchable thirst for sparkling wines around the world, these regions are fast becoming the go-to places for highquality traditional-method fizz without the Champagne price tags. As Lunelli of Ferrari points out, the playing field is big enough for everyone: “The world is huge and there is massive potential for sparkling wine. Champagne doesn’t have the monopoly anymore.

Perceptions are starting to change, which is creating a great opportunity for traditional-method producers,” he says. And with Brexit pushing wine prices up in Britain, Champagne’s number-one export market – the UK – might soon start looking closer to home for its fizz fix.