Unmasking the Champagne Conspiracy!

[Botafogo]

How can there be so little discussion here of one of the most fabulous, food friendly and celebratory wines in the world? Just to start the ball rolling, here is a little editorial:

They’re lying to you. They want you to be ignorant, clueless and easily manipulated. They’ve spent millions of dollars to inoculate you with a dreadful consumer virus called “brand anxiety”. They act as if alternatives did not even exist and if you point them out they call them “off brands from inconsequential players”. They take your money and give it to shareholders, ad agencies and guys named Louie with pinky rings instead of putting it in the bottle where it belongs. In short, they must be stopped! Who are “they”? Industrial Champagne producers (usually owned and operated by either giant liquor distribution empires and/or luxury goods consortiums) who want you to think of Champagne as a “branded lifestyle statement” instead of wine when, in fact, Champagne can be thougt of as northernmost part of Burgundy, growing the same varieties in an even more difficult climate and all the quality rules apply:

1) The best wines are made from Grand Cru and Premier Cru Vineyards.

2) The best producers are maniacal, hands-on grower / winemakers, not jet-set pseudo-royalty types who’ve inherited the figurehead proprietorship of a “luxury brand” owned and controlled by an insurance company, grocery chain or liquor distributor.

3) The best wines are NOT made in quantities of millions of cases (thousands of bottles, more likely!).

4) Most of the best producers are not in the industrial centers of Rheims/Epernay but in villages with fanciful names like Dizy, Bouzy and Ludes AND YOU CAN TASTE THE DIFFERENCES JUST LIKE THOSE BETWEEN VOLNAY AND CHAMBOLLE-MUSIGNY!!!!!

5) Anything that is made in enough quantity to be a “Brand” in a market with 270 million people is BY DEFINITION not the “creme de la creme” or in any way indicative of the best possible quality.

These houses are engaged in a battle for the very soul of Champagne with the industrial producers who want the French government to deregulate Champagne altogether. They need your support and their wines are better anyway. Of special added consumer interest is that the marketing weasels have been so successful that the best Champagnes often cost far less than the famous fizz due to the absence of giant ad budgets, the need to pour Jeroboams over the heads of athletes or giving significant proportions of the inventory away at charity functions. A win-win situation for savvy buyers, Cheers!!!

What is YOUR favorite Recoltant Champagne? Roberto (WINE EXPO / Champagne World HQ)