I recently hosted a tasting which highlighted the "Forgotten Grapes of Champagne".
As many of you know there are predominantly two grapes used in the production of champagne: Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. There is a third, Pinot Meunier, which is used much less often but frequently enough to warrant inclusion in a list of primary grapes used. What you may not know is that there are seven grapes which are legal to be used to make champagne. The remaining four: Arbanne, Pinot Gris, Petit Meslier, and Pinot Blanc.make up less that 0.02% of total plantings in the region. So to say that they are rarely used would be an understatement.
So because I have this kind of offbeat personality, I decided to do some research and find wines which did not highlight the predominant two grapes, if they were included at all. I tried to keep the total quantity of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay to less than one-third of the blend (preferably none, as in the last four wines) - and hoped I could even find some bottles which were composed exclusively of one of the remaining grapes (I found three of the five).
Also of great interest were the blends which use most or all of the legal grapes in somewhat equal proportions.
I did find enough interesting bottles to run my tasting and it turned out to be excellent (no personal back patting here). (Well maybe just a little). I was not particularly surprised that the highest ranked blends contained some of PN or Chard. But what was more interesting is that with the exception of the #1 wine - (the "6 Cepages" and the #2 wine (the "Nombre d'Or), the scores were so tightly bunched that the ranks may have no statistical significance.
I didn't serve any pure Chardonnay, pure Pinot Noir, or PN/Chard blends because there are so many wines with so many different styles that I felt no meaningful conclusion could be drawn from that comparison; and it would have added too many additional bottles to the tasting. So I left the wines to stand on their own. I think that was a good decision as the ultimate conclusion was that the wines, although stylistically different, were of the highest quality and flavor.
I should also mention that I felt that the #8 wine - the 100% Arbanne, was still superb. If anything, it suffered more from being a less familiar flavor than from a lack of quality. Those of you who have had the privilege to taste a wine with, say, 20-25 years or more of age might find similarly rich flavors, not necessarily the bright crisp flavors that we are often used to in the younger wines.
I should mention that the tasting was blind so no one could color their opinion by knowing what they were tasting. Also, I expected that some comments may have been made about the wines coming from other regions of France, where some of these grapes are used to making sparkling wines. or even the US. But in the end, most of the opinion was that they were from Champagne.
For more information see the article, "The Forgotten Wines of Champagne" by the Society of Wine Educators 5/18/2013
Here are the wines I used and the percentages used in the blends.
It is hard to format this chart for use here so forgive me if the chart doesn't look straight on your computer.
......................................................GRAPES:....Chardonnay - PinotNoir - PinotMeunier - Arbanne - PinotBlanc - PinotGris - PetitMeslier
-------Includes some PN and/or Chard ---------
LaHerte Freres: "Les 7" Extra Brut - 7 .........................18%...........14%.............18%................8%............17%..........10%...............15%
Aubry: "Le Nombre d'Or" 2005 - 2 ................................10%...........20%...............5%..............20%.............5%...........20%...............20%.
Moutard: "Cuvee des 6 Cepages" 2007 - 1 .................16%...........17%.............16%..............17%............17%.............0%..............17%
Drappier: "IV Quattour" Blanc de 4 Blancs - 4 ............. 25% ............0%...............0%..............25%............25%...........25%...............0%
-------------- No PN or Chard ------------------------
Ariston-Aspasie: "Cepages d'Antin" - 6 .........................0%..............0%................0%..............40%............20%............0%..............40%
Egly-Ouriet: "Les Vignes de Vrigny" - 5 ..........................0%..............0%............100%...............0%..............0%.............0%................0%
Moutard: "Cuvee Arbanne" Vieilles Vignes - 8 ...............0%..............0%................0%............100%..............0%.............0%.................0%
Pierre Gerbais: "L'Originale" Pinot Blanc - 3 ..................0%..............0%................0%................0%...........100%............0%.................0%
The number after each wine was the ranking based on the results from the tasting.