1999 Clos Cazals vs. 2000 Hervé Dubois Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru – brothers in arms …

During a stay in Epernay a couple of years ago we went by a very “French” wine magazine in Epernay (close to the “Avenue de Champagnes”) to supply with some sparklers for dinner. From the outside you don’t get a clue what kind of treasure chamber you are entering by opening the door. All over the place and in every single corner this small store is filled up with stacks of boxes offering all the big names and vintages. Of course it has been impossible for us, just to buy what we needed for this evening. After I studied the, again very French , wine list I asked the owner, a nice and helpful elder lady what wine she would recommend us. Without any hesitation she digged in a stack a little bit more in the back and pulled out a box of – Clos Cazals. “A very hard (ca. 4000 bottles/year plus some Magnums) to get and very typical, great Blanc de Blancs !” she pointed out with a certain smile. Well, also the price has been fancy and indeed “great”, but comparing with other blue chips still reasonable. So let’s see what Clos Cazals is all about. Shortly after opening I already broke out in cold sweat because the pressure inside the bottle has been surprisingly low and also the inelastic cork remained in the same shape. No distending to the well known “mushroom” anymore. Under such circumstances further aging here would be more than questionable. But the wine didn’t suffer (yet) this imperfect closure and a bright, strong straw yellow colored Champagne with a very persistent, fine Mousseux (hail to high quality glasses !) poured in our glasses. The nose has been a little bit sweaty in the beginning (or was it me ??) but after a couple of minutes this wine pleased us with a pure and wonderful mature Blanc de Blancs perfume. Roasted hazelnuts, pickled, green walnuts, white blooms, fresh green apples and lime zests spiced up with soft yeasty scents, traces of black pepper, thyme and in the background mineral notes of wet chalk. Yes, that’s the way we like it ! With some time also more mature smells of bread crust and honeycombs completed this marvelous bouquet. The palate showed a superb wine, too. Again a lot of green apples and chalk but also rosemary, oranges and wood. Everything well defined and balanced with a great foaming, a very precise, crystal clear acidity and a high pressure until the very long, very mineral, almost salty aftertaste. No exaggerated, sticky residual sugar needed to pretend quality and consistence. A Champagne with a high complexity and offering everything one could expect from this region – like the lady said … Thanks for the hint Madame, very good stuff, just the bottle has been, again, too small !

A bird never flew on one wing … But what to drink after such a wine ? A wine out of the same region of course . Not recommended by a dealer but by another college. This time Demière-Ansiot (here you have to try his outstanding Millésime Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs) gave us that hint. Hervé Dubois is just another example for a more unknown family business in the Champagne region which provides high quality wines for reasonable prices. This one here showed a surprisingly young, pale lemon yellow color with a soft green shine and a persistent, fine Mousseux. I remember a 2004 vintage of this producer and here the color has been more developed. But never mind that and never complain about something positive ! The truth lies in the glasses and what we found here has been more than just yummy. This wine simply “bombed” us with a lot of citrus, sage butter, vanilla sugar and fresh yeast dough. All this underlaid by a very mineral scent of wet sea salt. Young, fresh, crispy – hallelujah – give me another bottle! A real teaser and terrifying easy to drink. After the first sip you get automatically big cheeks due to its strong foaming but a razor-sharp acidity cuts the wine and so you are able to swallow it already craving for the next sip. Very lively and fruity palate with a lot of mandarins, soft, silky tannins and a slight bitterness in the medium long aftertaste. For me that’s another sign of the wine’s youth and also its dosage has been better integrated comparing to its younger brother of 2004. In the end this wine has been still a youngster but with a very bright future ahead. It hasn’t reached yet the mature complexity of the Clos Cazals but this lack/difference will become smaller with further aging and today it offered us already a genius drinking pleasure. But the best thing for me is the fact that we still have some bottles of this wine in our cellar – unlike the Clos Cazals …