Yellow Label blossoms in pink
By Lyn FarmerIs rosé on the rise? It is if Clicquot's launch last month of a non-vintage rosé is any indication. According to Clicquot president Cecile Bellefond, the wine was to debut two years earlier, "but when we sent our first shipment to Japan, it was such a success they bought it all and we had nothing left to show anywhere else." The house was finally able to make its delayed worldwide launch of the non-vintage rosé ($55) at a gala ceremony aboard one of the bateaux mouches that travel up and down the Seine on March 21.
The debut was fashioned around a French anagram adopted as the new wine's motto: Oser Rose Eros. The words mean "to dare," "Pink" and "Eroticism" or, perhaps less literally, but more accurately, "Sensual." In a perfectly orchestrated series of events created to explore the intended nuances of the wine, a group of about 200 rosé lovers from around the world attended the "daring" party at the Eiffel Tower, then piled into limousines for a trip to the Musée d'Orsay, the museum that focuses on the art of the Impressionists. There, guides pointed out paintings and statues that possessed a thematic link to elements of the new wine, including daring and erotically charged works by Manet, and several by Monet and Renoir that use pink to striking effect.
Then, it was on to the boats and a late-night party that included a tasting, or "sensing," that was quite literally blind, with yellow and pink blindfolds forcing guests to use other senses to explore objects illustrating structure, texture and red fruit aromas before finally having a glass of the new rosé pressed in the hand for a dramatic finish.
It was fun, but was there a point made that went beyond having a party. With no small irony, this very contemporary event ended up emphasizing history.
As far as we know, Clicquot was the first house in Champagne to sell a rosé. According to receipts in its archive, the company sold its first rosé in 1775, just three years after the house was founded (it was a non-vintage wine purchased by a client in Switzerland), and there are several references to rosé in ensuing years, though the first notation about a vintage rosé isn't until 1810. With the discovery of these early records during an archive restoration in 1999, cellar master Jacques Peters advanced a project he had been considering for some time, and the company began working in earnest on creating what he calls "the rosé expression of Yellow Label," the company's popular non-vintage Champagne.
"It is more than knowing we had early experience with non-vintage rosé," he said. "What especially intrigued me was how we made it then and my interest in making it the same way now." The elements he found particularly intriguing were that the 18th-century rosé was made by blending red wine into the white wine base rather than allowing the skins of the red grapes to macerate with the pressed wine for a few hours. This "bleeding" is considered the more traditional method by many houses, though few do it any longer because it is so hard to control. The house's archivist also discovered that the red wine added was not only pinot noir - invariably the practice today and one employed by Clicquot for its vintage rosés - but included Champagne's other black grape, pinot meunier.
"This is how I wanted to make the rosé today - adding a red wine made from both grapes to a base wine of both black grapes plus chardonnay. We started working on sourcing the grapes in 1999 and then made the first one using vintage 2000 as the base, bottled it in 2001 and planned to disgorge and release it in 2004," Peters explained. That's when the Japanese market swallowed up the entire production. According to Charles Curtis, M.W., the director of education for Moët-Hennessy, Clicquot's parent company, "Japan is a huge market for rosé today." So it was back to the vineyards and blending room for Peters and his team as they began to rethink their estimates of the quantities of grapes the new wine would require.
In a sense, this is encouraging news for those of us who love rosé, but have been frustrated by ups and downs in supply and quality as the wine appears to move in and out of fashion. Clicquot's Bellefond acknowledged that, "For a long time, we have seen rosé as light and feminine, as both a color and wine, but today pink is contemporary." In other words, it's okay for guys to drink and think pink, in apparel and design, as well as their choice of beverage.
Bellefond, an exceptionally charismatic presence who joined Clicquot after working as a top executive at The Kellogg Company, among other multinationals, insisted, "Rosé will endure, but it is also a sign of the times; it reflects the optimism you look for in a difficult world. We see rosé and pink, and we feel happy, and I don't think people will stop wanting to be happy."
At the unveiling of the new wine, there was universal enthusiasm for the result, both cause and effect of 200 people consuming more than 30 cases of rosé alone. Carl-Fredrik Bothén, an influential wine writer from Sweden, thought it would be a huge hit in Scandinavia where rosé wines, both sparkling and still, have enjoyed a striking surge in popularity in recent years. The wine became available for purchase the day after the launch (the first day of spring), and early indications are that sales are already brisk.
With the Clicquot marketing machine behind the wine, an initial surge isn't surprising. And this might also be the shot in the arm Champagne in general, and rosé in particular, has needed. The "club set" will find plenty to like, and they are clearly part of the target market, but for the less casual wine consumer, this is a wine that can show just how good rosé is as an apéritif and with food.
And how is the wine? I confess I love it, and it does have a splash of optimism about it. In some ways it is even more distinctive than Yellow Label, thanks to its beguiling freshness and a color that is nothing short of luminous. Red fruit is unmistakable on the nose, with resonant scents of wild strawberry and cherry. I believe the complexity in the bouquet comes from not only using red wine made from both pinot noir and pinot meunier, but also because the red itself is a blend of three different vintages, another striking departure from the Champagne norm. The palate carries a notable freshness reminiscent of the skin of a red apple; and, rather like the nudes in Manet's paintings at the Musée d'Orsay, it has a seductive roundness.
While Manet shifted light to achieve his effect, in the NV Brut Rosé Peters crafted, a slightly less acidic rendering than the Yellow Label, this lush effect is attained in large part because of the red wine added to the blend.
Senior Editor Lyn Farmer received the 2003 James Beard Journalism Award for magazine writing and was also nominated in 2004.