Pretension can spoil the fizz
THE ageing of sparkling wine is a contentious issue. It's generally agreed that a lot of red wines benefit from time in bottle, and some white styles gain layers of interest and complexity after being aged, but it's not quite so simple with sparkling wines. And when it comes to that monarch of bubblies, champagne, opinion is mixed.
The Champagne region's pioneering method of producing high-quality sparkling wine is emulated across the world and involves ageing the wine on its yeast lees in bottle. Protected from oxidation, deliciously complex nutty, bready, toasty or patisserie characters develop, which enhance the flavour of the wine without loss of freshness. At disgorgement, the yeast lees is removed, and a bottle of champagne that's already aged, sometimes for many years, is ready to drink when it arrives on the market.
The second type of champagne ageing is bottle age, or "cork age", as local bubbly makers call it. In France, champagne is usually consumed soon after its release. A liking for old champagne is known as le gout anglais - "the English taste", due to the habit of some well-heeled British folk to drink champagne that's been aged in the bottle for a decade or more after disgorgement. This may have more to do with snobbery than wine quality.
At best, older champagne is elaborate, multi-layered and persistent, sometimes with nutty, smoky and toasty complexities, sometimes mellow and gentle like an old burgundy. More often than not it's dried-out; dull. Whether you like these traits, or prefer the lively freshness of younger wine, is all a matter of taste - and sometimes pretentiousness.
Long ageing on yeast lees before disgorging seems to help bottle-ageing potential and wines from houses such as Krug and Bollinger are often the best of the oldies. Other vintage champagnes can start to run out of puff past 10 or 12 years from vintage year, even when the ageing pedigree of the producer is good and the vintage hype promises long life. The ageing/oxidising process in bottle deepens the colour while the wine slowly loses its freshness and eventually most of its bubble, and the flavours are dominated by the nutty, caramelly notes of maderisation.
A recent tasting in Melbourne of wines from leading house Lanson - vintages from 1997 back to 1976 and including the prestigious Lanson Noble Cuvee and Lanson Gold Label Vintage Brut - cast an interesting light on the issue of age and champagne.
Of all the different champagne producers, Lanson has one of the best ageing pedigrees, largely because its wines are made without the acid-softening effect of the malolactic fermentation encouraged by many champagne makers to smooth their wines. This gives Lanson wines high levels of malic acid, the natural acidity of grapes. Champagne, being a very cool region, grows grapes of high natural acidity anyway, and since acidity acts as a sort of preservative for wine, the Lanson recipe looks to have good ageing potential.
The tasting proved that Lanson is a very good champagne house indeed. With the exception of the superb Noble Cuvee 1989, my view was that all the wines older than 1996 in 750ml bottles were starting to show their age, and those older than 1990 were definitely past their best, with the extraordinary exception of the 1976, a super-complex drop, mature but alive.
The tasting also proved just how much better these wines were in magnums. Not only do they evolve at a slower rate, they also develop much more subtle complexity along the way.
It may require a win in Tattslotto but magnums are the way to go for older champagne.
Lanson champagne is available at Dan Murphy stores. Selected older vintages can be found at Dan Murphy, East Malvern.