Champagne Jr.
By Howard G. GoldbergIn the late 1980s, when December and January cold, driven by whistling Hudson River winds, slid under our apartment's front door, awakening appetites for hearty, stick-to-the-ribs fare, my wife, Beatrice, and I would take a Manhattan subway downtown to an Alsatian restaurant called Quatorze. We always felt ourselves in friendly, professional hands when we entered the shiny red door, angled past the ever-busy, marble-covered bar and crossed a tile floor to a banquette that faced a table covered with a coarse, white cloth; a French poster or two hung nearby. Once ensconced, we half-studied the menu, then quickly ended that charade by ordering what we came for: a platter of steaming choucroute garni. While awaiting its arrival for the pig-out, we chewed crusty baguette rounds, toyed with the grainy mustard and, most important, ritually ordered a glass or two each of Willm's Crémant d'Alsace, always generously poured. (Each time I told myself the same corny joke: If a vowel was put between Willm's l and m, as needed by an American's eye, the wine would be more expensive. I never told it to Beatrice because in mock despair she would have rolled her eyes to heaven.)
Though Quatorze is long gone from, aptly, West 14th Street (its spinoff, Quatorze Bis on East 79th Street, still satiates Upper East Siders), I feel a debt toward the original management for reintroducing me to crémant - the very first taste was in Alsace - thereby saving my bank account countless dollars when a substitute for Champagne has been needed. Crémant, the name for the top French sparkling wines produced outside the Champagne region, is principally identified with Alsace, but there are other appellations seen from coast to coast from time to time: Crémant de Bourgogne, Crémant de la Loire, Crémant de Bordeaux and, to a lesser degree, Crémant de Limoux, Crémant de Jura and Crémant de Die.
All are customarily made using the méthode champenoise, though to avoid confusion, the European Union, and thus French authorities, require the process to be called méthode traditionnelle for crémants. In the rarified semantic sphere that scholars call onomatopoeia - the use of words whose sounds reinforce their meanings - crémant (KRAY-mahn), customarily translated as "creaming," perfectly represents its subject. I associate the word and its sound with "bubbling," "effervescing" and "foaming." This subjective linkage somehow heightens the pleasure of sipping the stuff. (Never drink it icy cold, by the way; frigidity can numb flavors and turn the appetite-sharpening acidity metallic and mean.)
Mumm once produced a crémant in the grand cru Champagne village called Cramant: hence, the amusing sounding Crémant de Cramant. With a name change, the product is now called Mumm de Cramant. I regret the alteration; the old name scanned nicely, like a good line of verse. Experts will tell you, accurately, that in quantity and forcefulness crémant's mousse tends to be weaker than Champagne's. Except for obviously coarse, large-scale bubbles in inferior products, to me fizz is fizz, though I do like watching pinpoint bubbles rising straight up and frothing the surface in a slender flute.
While Crémant d'Alsace was made in Strasbourg and Mulhouse in the 19th century, the appellation was created only in 1976. Since then it "has become the most popular Appellation d'Origine Controlée (AOC) for sparkling wine (excluding Champagne) consumed at home in France," says the Conseil Interprofessionnel des Vins d'Alsace, a promotional organization.
The average yearly production of Crémant d'Alsace, which is typically pale gold or pale brass in color, is 1.75 million 12-bottle cases, from more than 500 producers; this output represents 13 percent of all Alsace wine by volume. American distributors say that imports have been rising in recent years.
Local grapes play into crémants throughout France. In Alsace, most versions come from pinot blanc, but riesling, pinot gris and chardonnay are also used; in the Blanc de Noirs, pinot noir does the work. Like Champagne's styles, crémants can be brut (bone dry), sec (slightly sweet) and demi-sec (sweet).
Whether you prefer to treat crémants as apéritifs when guests arrive or to emphasize them with meals, they should be drunk young. If you want them aged, leave them in the wine store bag an extra ten minutes after you arrive home.
As a 23-year fan of Alsace wines, I found an invitation from the Alsace Wine Council to taste 18 still and sparkling whites with frankfurters (a crucial component of choucroute garni) at a New York Yankees-Toronto Blue Jays game at Yankee Stadium in July an offer that, as Don Corleone might have said, couldn't be refused.
Chilled in serving urns, Crémant d'Alsace (along with Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Muscat, Riesling and Gewürztraminer) tasted especially piquant in a left-field loge on a lazy afternoon. During the game, as I munched hot dogs piled high with steaming sauerkraut, I particularly enjoyed the non-vintage Albert Mann Brut and the 2005 Brut from biodynamic Domaine Barmès Buecher.
Additionally, this year I have found pleasure in drinking Lucien Albrecht's deservedly popular Blanc de Blancs Brut and pink Brut Rosé - a brand that seems to have caught fire across America - and Willm's Blanc de Blancs Brut and pale pink Blanc de Noirs, all non-vintage. Pierre Sparr's NV Brut Reserve and Frédéric Mallos's amusingly named NV Special Delivery were also winners. Non-vintage Abarbanel, a sophisticated, steely kosher wine, adds a dimension to Passover seders and Hanukkah fish and chicken dinners.
As for Crémant de la Loire, I can recommend Domaine Richou's NV Ancestrale Brut; Baumard's NV Carte Turquoise Brut; Langlois's NV Brut and Brut Rosé; and NV Sauvion. Want Crémant de Bourgogne? Try Louis Bouillot's NV Perle d'Aurore Rosé and NV Simonnet-Febvre. Crémant de Bordeaux? Jaillance's NV Cuvée de l'Abbaye.
On a long-overdue return trip to Alsace, if Beatrice and I visited Au Crocodile, the choice Michelin two-star restaurant in Strasbourg, I would gamble on crémant with these menu choices from chef Emile Jung: creamed prawn soup, avocado with wasabi; freshwater pike-perch and carp soft roe, "sauer-turnips" (whatever they are) and celery with smoked cream sauce; and poached chicken breast in pot au feu, braised chicory and spiced carrot juice.
The next stop, for auld lang syne, would be the jewel in the crown of Alsace cuisine, the Michelin three-star L'Auberge de l'Ill in Illhausern. It was there, two decades ago, that I first encountered crémant, poured gracefully by a sommelier while Beatrice and I rested on the restaurant's grassy terrace bordering the Ill river. On a return trip I would hope to order serial crémants as accompaniments with standouts on the 145-euro menu - even if, given the punishing dollar-euro exchange rate, back in New York I would gasp when the credit card statement arrived.
Associate Editor Howard G. Goldberg, who contributes wine columns to The New York Times, covers American wine auctions for Decanter magazine and www.decanter.com, both in London.