Best Champagnes

One team has worked hard to establish just what are the best champagnes each year (they do the same with numerous other styles as well). Fine Champagne magazine and subsequently www.tastingbook.com hold an annual competition to identify the world’s finest 100 champagnes.

Readers, members, wine professionals and the general public are all eligible to vote for their favourites. From this, a selected panel works through the champagnes, tasting them blind of course, to find the annual winners. The judging is held in Scandinavia at the end of August each year and needless to say, it is one of the preferred judging appointments available.

But it is necessary to ascertain how the competition works and how it divides.

First up, voting by the “readers, members, wine professionals and the general public”. A minimum of 2,000 votes is necessary for any champagne to progress. In reality, many thousands of votes are cast. From this, we see the list of those eligible which are then part of the final stage of the competition. The final judging is part of a much larger competition (it often includes tastings of an array of extraordinary wines, some of them incredibly old – this year, we went back as far as 1727 with an amazing German white).

The final judging is actually over a series of tastings, five this year, so it does mean that a wine which got up in one tasting, may not win overall. In my tasting, the superb Rare Rose 2012 swept all before it but in the end, could only secure second place behind the always consistent Dom Perignon 2013, another stunning champagne. This is a much fairer way to judge as the wines face a variety of palates and can’t simply ‘play a blinder’, one day and get up, or rely on judges which may love that style to the exclusion of others.

Those five tastings began with a “shortlist” of 221 champagnes, so this is surely the most thorough examination of these wines held anywhere on the planet.

The competition, now exclusively part of www.tastingbook.com, began in 2010. The champagnes must be available in international markets during this year. They address what is so often an elephant in the tasting room for any competition – should the wine be judged as it drinks on the day or do you take into account its future potential. Here, it is a competition for how the wine drinks on the day (which, of course, does not mean that there is not enormous potential for the future with many of these champagnes). This does mean that some great champagnes may not do quite as well as might be expected at this moment.

Consider that the legendary Salon 2012 was in 14th place, Pol Roger Sir Winston 2013 in 21st spot and Veuve Clicquot’s superb La Grande Dame 2012 just 19th, when we looked at the first stage. I have no doubt that if we tasted all the wines again in a decade, or even two, all three would feature much more prominently.

Looking at the votes for the first sector, Dom Perignon 2013 took top spot and it is hard to argue. The glorious Rare Rose 2012 (had my top vote in the final tasting as well) was second.

Third will stun many people – the joint venture champagne, Thienot x Penfolds Blanc de Blancs 2013 (their Blanc de Noir 2013 took 12th overall). Rounding out the rest of the top ten here were Perrier-Jouët Belle Epoque 2013, Bollinger 2014, Charles Heidsieck Rose 2012, Moet & Chandon 2013 (a stunning achievement for a champagne that is so often dismissed because of its massive production, especially as most of the other champagnes in the top ten could be considered prestige champagnes), Armand de Brignac Blanc de Blancs NV (without in any way dismissing this achievement, I'd love to know how many vote for the dazzling presentation and sizzle surrounding the wine and owner, as I suspect very few have tried it – produced in tiny quantities, the price pushes around $1,500 per bottle – that it failed to gain a spot in the top 100 after the final judging speaks volumes), Louis Roederer Cristal 2013 and Taittinger Comtes 2012.

Moving to the final judging where all wines are tasted numerous times, the Dom held its top spot. Taittinger’s Comtes 2012 moved up to 2nd (and who could really argue, such a stunning wine it is), Dom Ruinart 2010 took 3rd, Louis Roederer Cristal 2013 next, the Moet Grand Vintage Collection 2006 (a wine aged for extra time but currently available) was 5th and that super Rare Rose 2012 6th. The results for all can be seen on the site.

I mentioned some older champagnes. We tried these at other stages during the event – Louis Roederer 1915 from a magnum was complex and reminded me of sandalwood honey (like almost all champagnes of this age, the bubbles are long gone); 1929 Krug was truly phenomenal; the 1911 Veuve Clicquot was a lovely drink but had seen better days; the same could be said of the Pol Roger 1942; while a 1911 Moet & Chandon was stunning and got better in the glass. The 1893 Mumm Cordon Rouge was not far behind it.

But what was truly beyond belief was the 1807 Moet. No bubbles, but still more than alive and with a gorgeous line of sweetness running the length. It might not be the greatest champagne I’ve ever seen, but it was undoubtedly the most fascinating wine of my life.

Will today’s champagnes perform so well in a century or two? Who knows, but as none of us will be around to report back, sadly, it is yet another topic for that late night debate. With a glass of your favourite, of course.