Wine newsletter
I have known Claude Carré (he is a real man, not a made-up brand like so many Champagnes) for over two decades. He is based in the village of Trépail, in the Montagne de Reims, just up the road from Ambonnay. Trépail is, like much of the Montagne a Pinot Noir stronghold, but Claude plants almost exclusively Chardonnay. His thinking is that if red grapes can ripen here then even in the coolest years his Chardonnay will excel!
He only makes about 145,000 bottles a year and in old money that’s a pretty teeny twelve thousand cases. Gosh, looking at it like that we are a very significant slice of his business – no wonder we get such good service! Anyway, the point about this write up is to tell you why we have, year after year, listed this wine from a quirky little grower in Champagne as our House Fizz rather than going for a more famous name.
I taste every Champagne that is sold in the UK every year as part of my job as Bibendum’s wine buyer, but also because of my journalistic responsibilities. So the first consideration is that we sell, as our House Champagne, a wine that absolutely nails its flavour and is loved by as many different palates as possible. Claude’s 100% Chardonnay, Blanc de Blancs, cuvée does this with aplomb. I remember Peter Gago (the chief winemaker at Penfolds and the man behind Australia’s most iconic red wine Grange) coming in for dinner one night and he declared it the most enchanting House Champagne that he had ever tasted – and this is a man who has a staggering collection of Krug Clos de Mesnil (another 100% Chardonnay wine, but this time costing over £1000 a bottle!). Peter is not the only fan of this wonderful, mesmerising wine – we have had hundreds of comments over the years about the purity, charm, friskiness, class and palate-primping qualities of this refreshing Champagne. I have made a conscious decision to stick with a Blanc de Blancs, too. In simplistic terms, the reason for this is that white grape dominant wines don’t fill you up as much as say the delicious, but much richer, Bollinger Special Cuvée. This is because Bolly’s blend is heavy on the red grapes Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. It is one of my favourite NV Champagnes, but as a House Champs it is too filling and rich. So we suggest that whatever you decide to drink from our amazing wine list you do so after paving the way with an elegant glass of Claude Carré – it sets the scene and doesn’t weigh you down before you’ve actually kicked off. I have (many times) drunk a glass of Claude Carré and then moved onto a foodier, more structured Champagne with starters for example!
The other requirement for a House Champagne is that you can indeed drink buckets of it if you so desire. This is why it works so well downstairs in the Oyster Bar. With clean Chardonnay lines and a citrus tang it is particularly well-suited to our O/B menu. So Claude is 
here to stay even though other less good, richer, more familiar brands court us every year trying to buy their way onto our list. They don’t stand a chance! In fact, when they taste Claude Carré most don’t even bother trying to push the sale. Claude Carré 1 – His Competitors 0.
There is one final and perhaps a little technical or dull point about this Champagne which will appeal to the nerds out there and which I think that you might possibly get a kick out of. Claude Carré is sealed with DIAM corks. These are ultra-high-performance corks which are made from cork granules that have been washed in liquid CO2 to kill any potential bacteria (which can make the wine ‘corked’) and then reassembled into a perfect Champagne cork – not the old three tier oft faulty one! This amazing science means that you can never get a corked bottle of Carré. These expensive closures are used by a number of perfectionist wineries around the world (and increasingly in Champagne by other fastidious Houses). But who’d have thought that this boutique, one man band, modest estate would be using cutting edge technology? Well we know and now you do, too.
We love Claude Carré and in spite of incessant duty increases and VAT hikes along with disappointing exchange rates we can still serve this incredible wine as our House Champagne and we are bursting with pride to do so.
Matthew Jukes – January 2012
