Champagne tastes on a beer budget
If you don’t fancy shelling out thousands of dollars for a bottle of wine, how about spending under $25 for something almost as good, asks Michael Donaldson.
Is French Champagne really worth the cost? Why is Burgundy so expensive? Would you pay $2500 for a bottle of sauvignon blanc? For a beverage so widely consumed, wine sometimes struggles to shake its elite status when people are prepared to pay $1000 for a bottle of Aussie shiraz or when the word ‘‘Champagne’’ can inflate the cost of a bottle of bubbles.
But what makes an expensive wine, and can you get a bottle at the supermarket that will do just as good a job?
Burgundy v pinot noir
Burgundy. Such a humble sounding name – more earthy than the aristocratic ‘‘Champagne’’, but the French region of Burgundy produces some of the most expensive wines in the world.
Auction house Zachy this month has three bottles of Domaine de la Romanee-Conti 2012 listed with an estimated price range of $40,000-$60,000 – that’s up to $20,000 a bottle.
Not all Burgundy is so expensive, but it’s mostly beyond the scope of the majority of punters.
‘‘In Burgundy, we’re talking $1000-plus for a bottle of the good stuff,’’ says Sam Kim, deputy chair of the New World Wine Awards. ‘‘It’s based on prestige built up over the past 200 years.’’
Most Burgundy is made with pinot noir grapes – the most fickle, temperamental, yet elegant variety to grow – and when they are grown in a tiny geographic region where real estate is prohibitively expensive, naturally the price goes up. And then you limit the supply. That RomaneeConti 2012? Just 450 cases were produced.
In contrast, the highest-priced New Zealand pinot noir might retail in the hundreds, rather than thousands, of dollars. But Kim argues Kiwi pinot noir is much better than the price suggests.
‘‘New Zealand pinot noir is not as refined and sophisticated as the best Burgundy, but some of our finest are right up there.
‘‘It’s only a matter of time before people realise New Zealand pinot noirs are fantastic. But it takes decades to build up that prestige.
‘‘We’ve got a short history and, while the quality has improved quickly, the price hasn’t caught up yet.’’
As a result, you can get ‘‘fantastic value’’ pinot noir that’s only a ‘‘small degree of quality’’ removed from the best in the world for under $25. Kim cites Mount Riley and Squealing Pig as two exceptional wines in that price bracket.
Champagne v sparkling
The real success of Champagne houses, say cynics, is the ability to get punters to fork out a small fortune when they can get a similar-tasting wine for a much smaller outlay.
That’s not to say Champagne is over-priced. If you want prestige, go right ahead and fork out $10,000 for a bottle of Moet & Chandon Esprit du Siecle Brut – the Champagne made for the millennium, which blended only the best 11 best vintages of the 20th century.
The price of Champagne is all about prestige, says Kim. ‘‘And the Champagne houses have been very clever in maintaining that prestige. Of course, the wines are very good but the super-expensive ones are super-expensive because they are rare and made in tiny quantities, and if the uber-wealthy people want them they pay ridiculous prices.’’
Bizarrely, for the cost of one top bottle of French Champagne, you could get a dozen bottles of Lindauer Rose, which retails for less than $15 and is often closer to $10.
‘‘It regularly wins gold in international wine shows where Champagne is mixed in so, in blind tasting, Lindauer Rose shows up, which is pretty impressive. But because it doesn’t have the prestige or origin of Champagne, it doesn’t command the high price.’’
Vanessa Robson, winemaker at Maude Wines in Central Otago and a judge in this year’s New World Wine Awards, says the quality of the sparkling wine produced in New Zealand was a subject of intense discussion after the judging.
‘‘After the sparkling bracket this year, there were a lot of judges chatting among ourselves, saying we were excited to see what the results were because the sparkling wines we’d judged were quite exceptional.’’
Most Champagne is what’s known as nonvintage (or NV), which means that different vintages are blended together to make a consistent offering each year. It’s much harder and more expensive to make vintage sparkling wine, which is why the Dom Perignon 2008 vintage, for example, retails at $220 a bottle. Robson recommends The People’s Wine Methode Traditionnelle 2015 – a vintage sparkling wine.
‘‘Methode traditionnelle results in wines with more complexity, which increases with the time you leave it in the bottle on lees [yeast]. There are some exceptional examples coming out of New Zealand and The People’s Wine Methode Traditionnelle 2015 retails for $15-$20.’’
Shiraz
Mention Australian shiraz and the conversation quickly turns to Penfold’s Grange. These days, a bottle will set you back around $1000 at auction.
The other ‘‘grand’’ Aussie shiraz is Henschke Hill of Grace, which also sells for around $1000.
Robson says a number of factors go into making those wines so expensive.
‘‘There’s the prestige of the vineyard and the brand awareness, especially for Penfold’s Grange, and the international rarity of those wines. A lot of those wines are on allocation. They are already sold before they are in bottles.’’
Collectors cellar and occasionally sell them at auction, which is where the price can skyrocket. But prestige and ‘‘cult’’ value can be acquired. Robson, an Australian, remembers when Henschke Hill of Grace was a quaffer.
‘‘My mum and dad used to drink Hill of Grace at barbecues in the 1970s. It’s caught on to popularity quite quickly in the wine world. When we say quickly, we’re talking 40 years, but that’s quick in the wine world.’’
There is discernible quality about these wines, Robson says, which starts with the quality of fruit, and includes using new oak barrels, which are more expensive than seasoned oak.
‘‘Between a $20 wine and a $500 wine, you’d be able to taste the difference, but between a $20 wine and a $50 wine, maybe not so much.’’
Kim agrees, saying around the $20 mark, ‘‘Aussie shiraz is incredible value for money. They offer richness, velvety mouthfeel and power. You can drink them quite young, but you can also put them away for five years or more, and wait for the flavour to develop. If you pick a good shiraz for around $20, they are as good as $100 to $200 wines, which have brand image and reputation built over many decades.’’
Everyday wines don’t end up at auction, they end up in the supermarket.
Kim recommends Red Knot McLaren Vale Shiraz for absolute value.
‘‘You could definitely put it in your cellar. It’s not quite as good as a $100 wine, but it’s not far off.’’
Chardonnay
Like pinot noir, the best chardonnay in the world comes from Burgundy – where it’s known as white Burgundy. But because chardonnay grapes are easier to grow and are more widespread, the best French versions are a fraction of the price of their red brethren.
You can pick up a Leroy Domaine d’Auvenay Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru for the price of a second-hand car: around $6000. More widely available – and reasonable (relatively) – is Marcassin Estate Chardonnay from California, at $400 a bottle.
For under $15, Kim has no trouble recommending Church Road Hawke’s Bay 2017 Chardonnay (‘‘that’s a goodie’’), or Vidal Estate Hawkes Bay Chardonnay 2018.
Sauvignon blanc
Sav blanc for $2000 a bottle? Tell them they’re dreaming.
Actually, no, it’s a reality for Screaming Eagle, in California’s Napa Valley. In 2006, six bottles of its sauvignon blanc went for $13,000 at auction.
Wendy Stuckey of Marlborough’s Spy Valley says the value is a spill-over effect from the vineyard’s cabernet sauvignon.
‘‘Screaming Eagle came to prominence when one of its wines got close to 100 points from [critic] Robert Parker. Suddenly everybody wanted it, but they had such a tiny production, all of it was on allocation. It’s not available to the likes of you and me.’’
Stuckey notes that California sauvignon blanc has different characteristics to Marlborough versions – the acidity and ‘‘precision’’ are not as tight.
‘‘I’ve worked in Napa and I made sauvignon blanc in Washington state for about eight years. We always tried to emulate what they did in Marlborough.
‘‘A lot has to do with canopy management to get more of those herbaceous characteristics but, of course, we couldn’t because Marlborough is unique in that flavour profile.’’
So why pay top dollar for a Napa sauvignon, when it’s not ‘‘classic’’?
‘‘Well, there are a lot more wealthy people in California who want to spend money on wine, and that’s the challenge we have in New Zealand.
‘‘If you put Screaming Eagle up against a couple of those New World [Wine Awards] winners, the New World ones might be better . . . but you’d have to do the test.’’
Stuckey is impressed with Joiy Savvy Society, which retails in a 250ml can for around $8.
‘‘When I realised it was from a can, I thought ‘wow, that’s amazing’, but it’s really good.’’
Rose
What would you pay for a decent bottle of rose? Twenty bucks tops? After all, it’s a quaffer designed to drink young.
Yet, one of the most expensive – Antica Terra Angelicall Rose from California – is an eyewatering $160 a bottle. Is it worth it? No, says Kim.
‘‘[With] $100-plus rose, much has to do with brand image and how they’re marketed. Roses under $20 will be pretty close to that level – those super-expensive ones are pure image.’’
Try an Allan Scott rose, he suggests, a classic style at less than $15.
This article was commissioned in response to a commercial partnership with New World. We have produced it independently, to the same standards applied to the rest of our journalism.