Highly Acclaimed Champagne Headed to Australia as Global Sparkling Wine Sales Hit All-Time Highs
Global champagne sales have hit a 14-year high and iconic brand Bollinger is leading the charge in Australia with the upcoming release of its highly acclaimed La Grande Année.
More than 322 million bottles of champagne were shipped worldwide from France last year, the highest number since 2008.
It looks like a throwback to the good times for the makers of the prestigious bubbles whose sales plummeted when COVID lockdown laws forced bars, clubs and restaurants to close for two years.
A report from the Union des Maisons de Champagne, the trade organization representing champagne producers in France, says champagne sales hit an all-time high of more than $5 billion in 2021.
Around 8.5 million bottles are sold in Australia each year and could exceed nine million this year.
Most are non-vintage cuvées such as Moet & Chandon, Piper-Heidsieck, Lanson, Pommery, Taittinger and Pol Roger with prices around $60-70.
If there is such a thing as a champagne index that mimics stock market ups and downs, it would be in a good place right now.
Despite global security fears and the cost of living crisis, champagne sales are on the rise.
Crisis? What crisis? To understand the French fear of a crisis, one must understand the attitude of the French government towards its emblematic bubbles. With millions of bottles stored in chalky cellars often under the vines, there was no real supply crisis.
Champagne is a highly regulated product in France, and all-powerful bureaucrats intervened in 2020 as sales plummeted.
They announced a reduction in the amount of grapes that winemakers would be allowed to pick and vinify from that year’s harvest.
Allowable yields were set at 8,000 kg/ha, significantly lower than the usual estimate of 10,800 kg/ha. Another blow came in 2021 when the harvest was hit by hail, mildew and frost.
But you can’t keep good bubbles.
Three big champagne houses, Bollinger, Champagne Deutz and Veuve Clicquot will inject optimism this year.
Luxury brand Bollinger is leading the way in Australia with the imminent release of its La Grande Année 2014 ($260).
It won encouraging reviews in Paris and London.
Australian international critic Tyson Stelzer gave it 97 points and wrote that it “resonates very deeply in the mid-palate…with all the theatrics of the blend of spices, fig, dried nectarine and toasted brioche culminating in a texture wonderfully voluptuous. A truly awesome Bollinger in every way.
It also received similar reviews after a UK-exclusive launch at The Woodspeen, a Michelin-starred restaurant in a restored 19th-century farmhouse in West Berkshire.
Guests feasted on chef Peter Eaton’s tasting menu of Cornish lobster tail, claw cannelloni and caviar, followed by Creedy Carver free-range duck brisure, smooth liver pâté, a poached quince potato and a duck leg terrine served with Bollinger La Cote Aux Enfants 2016.
For dessert, La Grande Année Rosé 2014 was served with Baked Alaska served with honey from the Champagne Bollinger estate, gariguette strawberry and lime parfait sourdough brioche and strawberry coulis.
The Calabria Family Wine Group, which has vineyards in South Australia and New South Wales, is importing Deutz Champagne after a three-year hiatus.
Calabria distributes Champagne Deutz NV Rosé and Champagne Deutz NV Brut Classic (including half bottles).
The Brut Classic was structured, rich and complex with a nice mineral background.
Other prestigious cuvées will arrive later in the year, including Deutz Brut Millésimé 2014 and Deutz 2011 Amour De Deutz Brut Millésimé.
Champagne Deutz was founded in 1838. Today it is in the hands of the Rouzaud family, which also owns Louis Roederer. Champagne Deutz has 3 km of cellars under its vines with space for more than eight million bottles.
Travel advice: The Woodspeen restaurant in Lambourn Road, Woodspeen, Newbury, two hours west of London, also has a cooking school.
Some champagne houses welcome tourists, including Ruinart 4 rue des Crayères, Reims; Taittinger 9 place Saint-Nicaise, Reims; Pommery 5 Place du General Gouraud, Reims; Lanson 66 rue de Courlancy, Reims; Veuve Clicquot Place des Droits de l’Homme, Reims and Alfred Gratein 30 rue Maurice Cerveaux Epernay.