Sommelier Tastes the Same Champagne at Different Ages

Vintage champagne makes me very happy.

There's just not a lot of it available.

It's pretty expensive.

Whenever I come across it and I don't have to pay for it,

you can count me in.

Hey, I'm sommelier, Andre Hueston Mack,

and today I'm gonna be tasting champagne

from the same producer from five different ages.

Over 50 years, champagne totally transforms in the bottle,

and today we're gonna take a look at it.

[upbeat music]

We have Champagne by Veuve Clicquot.

It's probably one of the most readily available

and most recognizable champagnes.

It goes back to mid or late 1700s.

So, it's been around for quite some time.

Today we have 1973,

we have 1982, 1993, 2012,

and we have a non-vintage.

And these are considered

some of the best vintages in champagne.

So, first up we're gonna take a look at the labels

and the bottles and see how they've changed over the years.

So, when you see champagne on a bottle,

that should indicate to you that this comes

from the region of champagne located in France.

There's lots of rules

that govern the use of the term champagne.

I think mainly the grapes that you can use.

You can use a blend of Pinot Noir,

Chardonnay or Pinot Meunier.

I think one of the first things that you'll notice

or look for on the bottles here is a vintage.

So, you'll have a year.

When you see a vintage listed on a bottle

that means that the majority of that wine

was harvested and produced that year.

One does not have a vintage on the label,

and actually it goes by non-vintage.

But technically, it's not a non-vintage.

It's just a blend of many different vintages.

That could be two years, it could be three,

it could be four.

And not one of those vintages

is a majority or enough that you can actually put a vintage.

They've only make vintage wines

when there are great vintages.

Otherwise, it probably goes into the non-vintage wine.

And these are all representations

of great vintages and champagne,

and they wanted to bottle them singularly

to capture that expression.

Prices, range ndfluctuate

through these particular bottles.

Least expensive starting with the non-vintage,

ranging all the way to $645.

What you're paying for is time.

You're paying for a moment in time.

So, the non-vintage here has the signature orange.

I do believe that they trademarked this orange.

When you're looking at the labels from 1973, 1982, and 1993,

they have this purple with this kind of,

really kind of regal one gold label.

In 2012 there, it looks like there was a label change.

So, they moved away from the purple foil

that you normally see in, you know,

some of the older vintages.

It's black and it does have the,

a little bit of the signature orange on it as well.

Green glass was what was used in champagne

just so a dark glass that kind of protects the champagne

from UV light.

If you look at 1973, it does have some scuffs on it.

Nothing to kind of really be alarmed of.

This would be a reason why it probably

wouldn't be as expensive as something

with a more perfect label.

But all in all, this looks intact to me.

Actually, there is something floating around in the bottle.

To me, it feels like it would be, you know,

some type of sediment or fallout as the wine ages.

I wouldn't be too alarmed about it.

I don't think it'll hurt you.

Take it straight to the dome.

[chuckles lightly]

Now, we're gonna open these bottles

and take a look at the corks.

So, we're gonna start with the non-vintage.

We can just cut underneath the cage here.

So, the cage is a safety mechanism, for one.

It ensures that the cork won't shoot out

due to the pressure that's in the bottle.

Champagne actually starts off as still wine.

And then at some point, once it's in bottle,

you add more yeast to the bottle

and that starts as secondary fermentation.

So, a byproduct of fermentation is carbon dioxide

and that's actually trapped inside the bottle

and that produces the bubbles.

And then they have these little tabs here, we're on 1993.

And I don't know if that thing was invented in 1973.

Uh-huh.

So, it's a little sticky here.

And as I'm starting to smell it, it smells somewhat sappy.

If you look at my hand, there has been some leakage.

That doesn't mean it's bad.

We're crossing our fingers here.

I don't know if the bottle was overheating.

But you can actually smell it too where it's like,

like where it smells like caramelized

or maderized, like through heat.

This indicates that gas has escaped from the bottle

along with some of the champagne.

So we're gonna go ahead and open the non-vintage.

I think people joke around a lot,

but you should really be serious about opening champagne.

It could definitely put somebody's eye out.

I think the first thing you wanna do is always

keep your thumb on top of the cork.

The little lever here, we'll pull it down.

And this is basically six half turns, pretty universal.

Now it is.

So it's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

And then keeping my thumb on top

when I grab the bottom of the bottle.

And I just wanna twist the bottle slowly

and then kind of let the pressure push the cork out.

[soft pop sound]

And that's it.

You're not supposed to make a big popping noise.

I think you see that in movies

and they shoot it across the room

and all that kind of stuff.

And that's a little bit reckless.

And this is actually Madame Clicquot.

So, that's her there.

She was a revolutionary and a visionary

within the champagne world.

She was the first woman to

actually head up a champagne house.

A champagne cork is different than a wine cork in its shape.

So, it almost kind of looks like a bell.

They don't start shaped like that.

The cork goes in halfway,

and then because of the pressure that is supplied

here on the cage, and how it's tied,

and the pressure up against the bottle

makes this little nudge here.

So, we're gonna go ahead and pour a little

of this non-vintage here.

So, the mousse is kind of the head as you pour it.

There's bubbles in the glass.

See these very tiny, small bubbles,

and I think that's what's really great.

Big bubbles, I think, get in the way.

This is like a straw with a golden hue.

They don't do any type of maceration for champagne.

It gets its color from the actual juice of the grape.

So now, I'm gonna open up the 2012.

[soft popping sound]

What we notice here about this cork is,

that it's a little bit slender

on the part that it's inserted in the bottle,

because it's actually been in the bottle longer

and it will slowly start to take on the shape of the neck.

Sometimes you want to match up

the vintage date on the cork with the vintage on the bottle.

Just to authenticate in some way.

There's a vintage date on here.

So, 2012 does match the one on the bottle.

Anytime I think that there's anything of value,

there is room for counterfeit.

So, you just wanna make sure that those things match up.

It just seems a little bit more crystal clear, if you will.

It has a sheen or a shine to it.

It's a little bit different than the non-vintage.

So, now we're moving on to open 1993.

Uh huh.

So, there wasn't a lot of pressure.

Even if you look at the cork,

it looks like a very old champagne cork

where it's not, you know,

inflated on the bottom.

The portion that goes in the bottle is pretty straight.

I don't see anything moving in the bottle,

but we don't know.

But, look at that.

To me, that looks like pear juice compared to the others.

19 year difference

is definitely gonna pick up some color here

as more oxygen has seeped into the bottle

over the aging process, it makes the wine darker.

There are small bubbles starting to propagate

and pop up here, so it's still ticking.

You know, I'm excited to taste this.

All right, so we're traveling back in time 41 years.

This is 1982.

We're gonna pop this puppy open.

I can feel a little gas coming out right now.

And that was it.

I would say a little less pressure than the 1993,

but pressure nonetheless.

I do see bubbles in the bottle.

So, this looks like this is still tickin'.

That looks like some kombucha.

So, very short-lived mousse

of very small bubbles.

Very dark color, it looks more like apple juice.

Really golden hue.

Fascinating.

41 years.

All right, so now we're moving on to 1973.

I'm gonna go ahead and open

this 50 year old bottle of champagne.

We do know that some wine has escaped through the bottle

so we're kind of on the lookout for that.

So, back in 1973 it's still universal.

The cage is still six and a half turns.

This cork is just spinning around.

No real pressure at all.

All right,

I don't see any bubbles being produced in the bottle.

It does look cloudy.

I don't know if that's the glass.

It's definitely a different style glass

that they use in the other vintages.

What I'm a little worried about is, you know,

the cork is brittle, so that kind of raises some suspicion.

And the cork tends to just kind of spin around in the bottle

which tells me that this part of the cork

that's inserted in the bottle was smaller than the bottle.

And that's where we were getting our air coming in from.

And the seepage from.

The cork will shrink just over time.

Like at some point it could be heated up,

so it can expand and then kind of contract.

What you don't want in wine is these big temperature swings.

You want a steady temperature

and the ideal temperature is somewhere around 55 degrees.

The only way we're gonna know if it's still

good to go is to pour it.

Okay, so it's really dark, there's no bubbles.

There should be some lifeline, you know, some effervescent.

Maybe there should be one or two bubbles popping up.

But, we're not getting anything.

This could have been stored improperly

and could have left us a long time ago.

It does have some debris and you can see

that it's pretty granular on the bottom of the glass

on the right hand side over here.

There's particles of the wine that start to fall off

and die, pigment from the skins or from the grapes.

I'm not afraid to give it a taste and a whirl.

You know, I've had wine from 1944

that was brown and it was great.

[laughing]

I'm very excited to taste these wines.

This is right up my alley.

Champagne, every damn day.

[slow tempo music]

So, now we're gonna move on to do a smell and taste

of the non-vintage.

Wow, this is a smell that's all too familiar to me.

Like, marzipan.

There is like a minerality.

So like, wet rock, lemon, lilacs.

It is a little kind of toasty, minerality, rock.

There is a little bit of pear and a little bit of some acid.

I am salivating a little bit.

Medium to full body.

You're gonna definitely tell that it's not flat,

you put it in your mouth,

it starts to fizz and bubble again.

And this is pretty standard and basic entry level champagne,

non-vintage for Veuve Clicquot.

I think it's a great starting point.

So now, I'm gonna move on and taste the 2012.

All right.

So, getting a little apple.

In a weird way, it smells like onions.

Not pungent onions.

Like, onions that have been cooked down,

slightly caramelized, buttery brioche.

So, it's green apple apricot, a little bit of like, citrus.

And then you get like all of this kind of like,

kind of hazelnut thing happening on the finish.

Some of the things

where it's starting to show its age and taste its age.

For me, as it starts to get a little bit more nuttier.

It's starting to show what bottle maturity looks like.

As it ages, the primary fruit

and the primary notes that you get start to like change

into the secondary notes that you get through aging.

Now, I'm gonna taste the 1993.

Woo.

Yeah.

So that, definitely smelling more butterscotch,

more kind of reduced, cooked down apples, pears.

A little bit more of like nutmeg,

some white flowers.

It smells like it's been in the bottle for quite some time.

Caramel apple all the way.

Halloween, trick-or-treat,

cooked down, has been in the pot stewing.

You know, and it tastes like old white wine.

And this is why I think the tasting of champagne

in the experience changes drastically between 2012 and 1993.

This has very, very small bubbles.

This is just a total complete different experience.

You know, it's not gonna be sparkly and bubbly

the way that you know something that's younger is.

And you know, you gotta drink it quickly.

So, now we're gonna taste the 1982.

'82 was a good year for wine overall.

It's more like a caramel chew.

To be honest with you,

this smells like an old closet in the best of ways.

Like, almost has like a little faint

of like, cocoa nibs or like, chocolate.

There's a very, very slight

prickling of the tongue from the bubbles.

Very, very slight.

I think within the next five minutes or so,

there'll probably be no more gas in the wine.

A lot of the primary fruit,

especially as wine ages and in the 1982 in particular,

have kind of fallen way to the background.

They're a little bit faint.

You know?

So, I get like just small like whiffs of like pear.

But like, on the apple side it's like cooked down, reduced.

So it's still there, but it's like it's changed its form.

This definitely drinks more like a wine

than actually champagne.

You wanna open it for people who,

you think that would appreciate it.

You know, I probably wouldn't open it at a New Year's party.

And the big moment of truth

is now we're gonna taste the 1973.

Oh yes, we're tasting, yes.

I'm kind of nervous.

To be honest with you, it smells slightly corked.

There's a kind of a wet cardboard thing

happening underneath.

So, when I say corked, it's cork tank.

So, it smells like a wet newspaper, wet animal.

There's a disease that's passed on

through corks that aren't treated properly,

And it's believed that one bottle

in every 12 bottle case is affected by cork tank.

It smells like pear juice out of a can.

It tastes like butterscotch kombucha.

It tastes like old white wine

that's past it's prime.

But nonetheless, I think this is all educational

and it's definitely drinking a wine

and understanding the wine that's kind of past its prime.

There's caramelization thing happening,

this butterscotch happening, and then that's it.

There's nothing else.

There's no nuance to it.

That's all you get across the board.

This ship has set sail here.

It won't make you sick or anything like that,

but it is a fault in wine.

So, there's a lot of different things that can happen.

And you know, buying old and rare wine

there is a risk associated with it.

There's no recourse to get your money back.

Buy at your own risk.

This is the game.

I love the game.

Love the game.

You win some, you lose some.

Hopefully you win more than you lose.

What really stood out to me, and my favorite was 1993.

I thought that was fun and like,

kind of where I would like to be at

where you can really see where it changes.

This was a great tasting.

I think this shows you what could happen

when you buy old and rare,

and how it could be a miss and it could be a costly miss.

And then I think it just showed you a how champagne ages.

To me, this is all about sharing the experiences

and making learning fun.

1973 didn't catch me completely off guard.

I would love for it to be great.

I could lie to you and say that it's amazing

but, that just wouldn't be me.

And it's not good to drink.

[chuckles]

It's not pleasant to drink.