When I first met Daniel Thibault, Charles Heidieck’s Chef de Cave, he was introduced to me as one of the most talented of all winemakers in Champagne. That was around ten years ago and Thibault’s extraordinary work over the last decade has only added to the lustre surrounding his name. It’s no exaggeration to suggest that while their Vintage wines may capture more press and more limelight, most Champagne makers are more concerned to maintain the quality and stature of their Non-Vintage blends which constitute the overwhelming bulk of their sales. But Charles Heidsieck recognised a crucial issue facing buyers of Non-Vintage Champagne – how to determine the freshness and likely future longevity of wines simply labelled as NV Brut? So in 1997 the house first introduced its radical revision of how its NV Brut Reserve was to be labelled, by actually giving it a date. Not to be confused with a vintage year, the year presented on bottles of Charles Heidsieck’s Mis en Cave NV is simply the year in which the blended wine was laid down in the cellar. Given that the northern hemisphere’s harvest is late in the year, the majority of any wine labelled as a Mis en Cave is likely to have been harvested in the year immediately prior to that shown on the label. It works like this: The Champagne harvest generally occurs in September-October, after which it takes until April for the vinification of the new wines to have been completed. Then, during blending, the selection of components from the new wines and the addition of reserve wines takes place, a process which usually lasts until the end of June. Charles Heidsieck adds an unusually large fraction of reserve wines, around 40% of the finished blend. Finally, after tirage, the addition of sugar and yeast, the wines are usually cellared in July. The Mis en Cave 1995, presently available in Australia, therefore comprises around 60% of 1994 material, plus 40% of reserve wine from previous vintages. It’s no accident that the Mis en Cave concept has taken Europe, the UK especially, by storm, but Charles Heidsieck is looking to push it further. French law requires that Non-Vintage Champagne receives a minimum of 15 months maturation on lees prior to disgorging, but this house leaves its wine on lees for at least three years. Furthermore, it will continue to release recently disgorged Mis en Cave wines of three different years every year, so buyers can choose between three different wines of obviously and clearly different levels of maturation, with a guarantee that the wines have not simply be given extra time maturing on cork. From the 1995 Mis en Cave onwards the bottle carries an indication in which part of which year the wine was actually disgorged. As the accompanying tasting indicates, I believe that Charles Heidsieck’s Mis en Cave wines stack up very well against the best of the other Non-Vintage Champagnes. As a group they offer a substantial variation of expression and of maturity. They bring an honesty and a straightforwardness to the labelling of Non-Vintage Champagne which not only helps you buy the wine of the maturity you want, but can protect the consumer against buying stock which has been kept for excessively long on cork. The wines also finally and eloquently put a firm end to the fundamental untruth that even with 40% of reserve material in a Non-Vintage blend, houses can maintain absolute consistency of style and flavour irrespective of different vintage conditions. Look for the different Mis en Cave wines available today. I expect you will be thoroughly delighted by their different expressions, levels of maturity, and prices.
