IMW - Annual Champagne Tasting

On Sept 26, the Institute of Masters of Wine, North America presented their annual Champagne tasting.
This was a paid event, $50 per person, and the fees go back to the IMW in order to build up their treasury and offer other events throughout the year. Last spring they offered a class on the Terroirs of Bordeaux with 6 Bordeaux vignerons presenting and discussing their properties and their wines. I had thought that this class may be the same.

Earlier this year, I had also attended another Champagne tasting sponsored by the Champagne producers of France, and I was looking forward to tasting them again, no matter what the format. I have no doubts. I like Champagne.

The IMW event was held in San Francisco's Ferry building, in a relatively small room, but the attendance was limited to just 100 people in order to prevent over-crowding, so while tight, it wasn't painful.

There were about 76 wines, most you would pour yourself, though several big name wines were poured for us to prevent hogging. I had it in my mind to taste as many as possible. This was made possible because the organizers had placed a number of spit buckets on a table in the middle of the room and I made constant use of them. By the way, I have to make this comment here. Some tasting events put the dump buckets on the serving tables and I think this is a horrible idea. Not only have I mistaken water pitchers for dump buckets ( Everybody has done this at least once, haven't they ?), but when the buckets are on the table some tasters tend to plant themselves at the table and make it hard for the rest to get a chance to either pour their wine out or get a new one. Having the buckets away from the tables generally keeps the crowds from congregating.

But not always. As soon as the doors opened, a subset of tasters went immediately to the "Vintage" Champagne tables and I swear never moved from there for the rest of the event. This was sad because they missed a lot of great tasting wines including a couple of Grand Cru non-vintage Champagnes. Also some of the vintage wines were spread out among the Blanc de blanc.

Another area that I think didn't get the attention that they deserved were the "Dose'" or slightly sweet Champagnes. There were only a couple of examples which may be why people missed them, but the two that i tasted were exquisite.

My wife, Susan, is a Champagne fan. She always regrets that we don't drink it enough. So I was happy that she went to the event with me, because I was hoping to give her a treat and I always value her insights.
Unlike the Vintage snobs, we just started on one wall of the room and worked our way counter-clockwise around the room from wine to wine. First the Non Vintage, then Blanc de blancs, then the Vintage wines, then the Rose / Blancs de Noir, then finally the Dose' off dry wines.

Here are my thoughts.

Susan noticed it first, but some Champagnes just disappear in your mouth! You take a sip and as you are evaluating it, poof! it's gone. You haven't swallowed, you didn't drool, the bubbles just sort of disappear and you forget that you even have wine in your mouth. It is actually kind of fun.

On the other hand, sometimes I would take a big sip and the wine would just fill up my mouth. It is like the CO2 just puffed my cheeks out. Also fun.

I was thinking that I could never be a Champagne connoisseur, that I couldn't tell the differences between several of the wines. That they all tasted the same. However, looking back over my notes, I am kind of surprised because few of my comments are identical. Considering that I was holding a glass in one hand, and my tasting notes in the other, and trying to write something about each wine, I am pleased that I got as much written as I did. This was actually another advantage of having the spit buckets in the middle of the room. There was always a chance to write after I poured out my glass.

OK, I need another note here: Some people carry around red plastic cups to spit into and then at a strategic time they pour them out. I think this is great, BUT ... there is no way you can carry a red plastic cup, and your glass, and your tasting notes, and a pen at the same time. If there is someone of you out there that can accomplish this, then my hat is off to you, you are way more coordinated than I.

Here are some of my comments about the wines in general: Ripe apple, medium ripe apple, over ripe apple, rotten apple, Ripe but neutral, No bubbles (common for an old vintage), mellow / toast, vanilla, yeasty / biscuit, chocolate (!), big fruit, slight spice, rich, nutty, creamy, low acid, high acid, melon aromas, mouth filling, very mouth filling, disappears in mouth, nice.

The vintage wines tended to be not as bubbly and they tended to have more of a ripe apple aroma and taste.

There were only a couple of Grand Cru wines in the tasting. I tried to keep my eyes out for them. But a comment about that. In Champagne, we have Grand Cru villages, not GC vineyards as in Burgundy and not GC producers as in Bordeaux. So, a producer in Champagne can actually have poor grapes and make poor wines but still call his wine Grand Cru as long as all the grapes came from vineyards in a GC village. The expectation, in general, however, is that these wines ought to show a little more quality, and so far, I think they do. So i was a little disappointed that there weren't more GC wines represented.

I think I would do this again, at least one more time, to hone what I have learned so far. Maybe, however, I can get what I want by presenting a Champagne tasting to my AWS group, where there could be more of an opportunity to sit and discuss the wines as well. need to look into that.

john