Champagne - Rasselet & Lallier

There’s nothing quite like Champagne.  Sure, there are plenty of fizzy wines out there, but sometimes only Champagne will do.  As Lily Bollinger once famously said "I only drink Champagne when I'm happy, and when I'm sad. Sometimes I drink it when I'm alone. When I have company, I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I am not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it - unless I'm thirsty".

You have to be careful though because it’s all too easy to fall into the trap of being blinded by branding.  Champagne is dominated by several big names (which will no doubt be familiar) yet a drive through the Montagne de Reims or a short detour off the main D3 along the Vallée de la Marne will reveal dozens of smaller producers making Champagne on a much smaller scale.  Hidden from view are also hundreds of simple grape growers who do nothing else than concentrate on the viticulture of their land and who sell their entire harvest to larger players.

It’s worth seeking out the producers who see the whole process through from start to finish.  They tend their own land, grow their own grapes and make their own wines.  Look for the letters “RM” in front of some numbers on the bottom of the label, they stand for Recoltant Manipulant and mean that the chap who grew the grapes also made the wine.  “NM” stands for Negiociant Manipulant, where the grapes have largely been bought in from smaller growers.

I passed through the Champagne region a couple of years ago on the way back from a family holiday in the Dordogne for a pre-arranged visit to Champagne Lallier in the village of Ay – a small set up employing about a dozen people.  Though they buy some grapes in from other growers, Lallier only make Champagnes from grapes grown on Premier Cru and Grand Cru designated vineyard sites.  Their quality is exceptional.

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JW and son at Champagne Lallier in 2011

More recently I visited Rasselet Pere et Fils based in the tiny village of Oeuilly (say it as if you’re The Fonz and you’ll be pretty close) a small family firm run by Joel Rasselet and his wife Edwige whose Champagnes we have shipped direct for many years.   

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Joel & Edwige Rasselet with JW in May 2013

Sue and I were well looked after and following a tour, tasting and lunch Joel and Edwige dropped us off back in Epernay at the cellars of Mercier where we did the Mercier cellar tour and tasting.  At Mercier you pay for this of course; such tours are big business.  The experience itself is worthwhile – a video presentation, a descent by panoramic lift into their 18km of cellars followed by a tour on a laser-guided train, all accompanied by a succession of multi-lingual fashion models….  The trouble is that after all that the tasting at the end is a bit of a let down.  Certainly Mercier Champagne is acceptable enough, but there is no depth of flavour, no concentration and just a hint that you’re tasting something that’s been rather rushed to market.  To be fair, you could claim that this is in keeping with the aspirations of their founder, Eugene Mercier, whose dream it was to make Champagne accessible to a wider audience.  Fair enough I suppose, but unless the drink is as memorable as the tour, why would they buy it again?



This is where the smaller producers like Lallier and Rasselet win.  They don’t put you on laser-guided trains, or try and sell you tea towels and baseball caps so you can advertise their brand for them, they simply put a quality product, made with skill and dedication, in a glass in front of you and let you make up your own mind.  The care and dedication to quality always shows through.  The only variable is you of course, and whether you are able to see beyond the brand names… 

The good news is that if you are able to recognise the similarity between the Emperor’s New Clothes and the big branded champagnes it will save you some money too.  On our recent trip to Epernay my wife and I paid more for a bottle of one of the well-known brands in a slightly scruffy bar (all they had and it was €57 – acceptable “mais rien especial”, the frites were free….) than we did for a bottle of Lallier Grande Reserve Grand Cru (€45) in a small local restaurant that served up one of the best meals we have had in recent years (if you want to know more about this restaurant just ask me and I’ll give you the details). 

Equally, wandering round the Eurotunnel terminal at Calais on our return journey I spotted Veuve Clicquot NV at about the same price as the multiples offer it in the UK (free of duty perhaps, but not free of big fat greedy profit margin it would seem).  For about a fiver less (more if the Clicquot isn’t on offer – though it usually is – draw your own conclusions…) Rasselet Brut Reserve sits on our shelves at £27 which makes it both cheaper and better than the celebrity labels and, if entertaining or giving it as a present, also shows a degree of effort on your part too since you have unearthed something relatively unfamiliar rather than lazily bought the one that gets sprayed over Sebasian Vettel every couple of weeks…

Joel Rasselet doesn’t make vast quantities of Champagne but what he does make is great value for money.  He has customers in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Holland and Italy though we are the only people bringing his Champagne into the UK.  Last year he sold his surplus production to Veuve Clicquot which may tell you all you need to know.  After all, that’s the bit he didn’t want…

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Champagne: Don't Be Fooled By Big Discounts On Big Brands - Look For Better Value Still...

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, and it’s time for too-good-to-be-true Champagne offers to start appearing in the national retailers.  All such deals depend on the customer not knowing enough about the product itself so that they simply default to making their buying decision on the only factor that is easily understandable – price!  The lower the price and the bigger the apparent saving the more likely it is that Joe Customer will take the bait, and the reassurance of a familiar brand is included in the hope of confirming that this is surely a cracking deal.  Hmmmm.....

However, if you buy a bottle of one of the big brand Champagnes at full price (£35-£45 or thereabouts) we reckon you’ll be paying about £10 a bottle more than you should be for the quality of the stuff in the bottle.  We base this on two things: 1.In the tasting we’ve done, the quality of the Champagnes we are able to sell for £25-£35 a bottle has consistently been much higher than the more expensive big brands, and 2. all the big brands have huge marketing departments to support (that’s where your extra tenner goes in case you’d not worked it out) and the small chaps we buy from don’t have to support this expensive marketing.  All that’s happening when the prices of the big Champagne brands are reduced by £10 or so is that they are temporarily suspending their demand for you to pay for their advertising.

Like all wines, Champagne can be too cheap, where you pay so little that all you get is the name on the label, but poor quality fizz inside the bottle.  We don’t go anywhere near such stuff, and if your budget for Christmas fizz is lower than £20 a bottle you’d be better off spending it on top quality fizz that isn’t Champagne – good Prosecco or Cava for instance.  Once you’re through the £20 mark though the Champagne starts to get interesting.  Charles Chevallier Brut d’Honeur nv at £21.85 is super value (just try and find a brand you’ve heard of for that price).  It’s fresh, yeasty and made in the classic tradition of the champagne houses of Aÿ, principally from Pinot Noir and Chardonnay with some Pinot Meunier and matured in cool chalk cellars for 5 years before release.

Move up the scale a bit and we have Rasselet Brut nv from the village of Oeuilly in the Marne Valley.  Halves, bottles, magnums and jeroboams are all available as well as a delicious rose and a demi-sec too, with the 75cl bottles priced in the region of £27.  We have dealt with Joel Rasselet for longer than we can remember and he has never let us down.  His Champagnes are super value – better in fact than any of the brands – and we are the only UK importer. 



Joel & Edwige Rasselet

At the same price is Veuve Fourny Premier Cru Blanc de Blancs, a 100% Chardonnay Champagne, fully organic with a lighter, crisper style.  At the top of the heap we have a stunning pair from Vilmart who are also 100% organic with grapes drawn from 100% Premier Cru sites.  The Vilmart Grand Cellier d’Or is barrique fermented and aged, and a blend of 70% Chardonnay and 30% Pinot Noir.  The Vilmart Coeur de Cuvee comes only from their best juice (80% Chardonnay, 20% Pinot Noir) and spends its first year in barrique.  It is the highest quality champagne, with fantastic richness and concentration.  These aren’t cheap of course, but you get what you pay for.

Vines overlooking the village of Hautvillers in the heart of the Champagne region.

 However, this year’s star looks like being Lallier Grand Cru Vintage Brut 2005.  The grapes that make this come from 100% Grand Cru vineyard sites and are a blend of 55% Pinot Noir from Ay and 45% Chardonnay from the Cote de Blancs.  Lallier Grand Cru Vintage Brut 2005 is aged for 48-72 months and kept a further 5 months after disgorging.  We regard it as one of the best 2005 vintage champagnes produced by anyone anywhere:  It is rich and fine with toasty characteristics yet still fresh and invigorating.  You simply have to try it – and you’ll get your chance…

Williamson & Son outside Lallier's cellars in Ay.

 Lallier are situated at the heart of the historic village of Ay and have some of the oldest cellars there, dating back to the 18^th century.  In 2004 Francis Tribault purchased the house from Rene James Lallier and developed their speciality of producing champagnes sourced only from Grand Cru and Premier Cru classified vineyards.  They have several more familiar champagne houses as their neighbours yet outshine all of them.  Francis Tribaut’s artisan approach to winemaking, using only natural yeasts and low dosage, allows the purity and richness of each Grand Cru terroir to shine through, creating distinctive and original wines.  We are pleased to offer the Lallier Grand Cru Vintage Brut 2005 at £42.50 a bottle, though with some help from Lallier themselves we are able to reduce this price to £39.50 per bottle until 31^st December 2012.  It will also be available to taste at our Christmas Winetasting on 22^nd November in Ipswich.  If the £20 mark is more your thing though then we’d steer you back to the Charles Chevallier Brut d’Honeur at £21.85 we mentioned earlier.  It’s also made by Lallier incidentally, though doesn’t come exclusively from Premier and Grand Cru vineyards that the Lallier label is reserved for.

Lallier's vines high on the slopes above Hautvillers

 So when you see the supposedly cracking deals offered on Champagne, just take a minute, engage your "common sense chip" and wonder, for a moment, whether what you're thinking of buying is the right product at the right price, or whether you're in danger of being fooled by a big discount on a familiar name.  After all, if they can afford to sell it to you at Christmastime at £10 a bottle cheaper than normal, why isn't the regular price £10 lower?  Could it be because the price isn't actually £10 lower at Christmastime, but rather it is £10 too high for the rest of the year?