What Is Cuvee Champagne?

Video Transcript

"Now the one thing about champagne (and I don't want to lie to you), in the end if you want to go for a prestige Cuvee, and you feel like you've got people you'd like to impress, it is absolutely worth doing. It's a lot of fun; you get (sometimes) these wonderful boxes. You can get wines that are in larger bottles; you've got a magnum here, and then you've got a double mag here or a gere boum. There are all sorts of these fun, different names for all the different types of bottles. Sometimes you get this nice packaging. This is Cristal, which you all know about and it's so expensive, I didn't actually even get the wine. But, this is made in crystal bottle and legend was that something along the lines that this was Napoleon's favorite champagne. He was afraid that someone was going to poison him, so he had it made in a crystal bottle so that it would be easier to see if there were any impurities in the bottles. But I think the true story is that he was having it shipped all they way from Russia, or shipped into Russia when he was trying to conquer them and falling back and still drinking a lot of champagne, I think to celebrate in the beginning and to drown his sorrows as they were pushed farther and farther back. But, Cristal has become a champagne, much like Dom Perionon, that people see a lot. You see it in a lot of videos and in the prestige clubs and the areas, the VIP areas. And I have to tell you, that although Cristal is very expensive and it's gotten a lot of exposure, it's still a magnificent champagne. And what you need to do with champagne is to find out which house you like the most. And there are some that are lighter, there are some that are heavier, there are some that are more toasty in that they really do taste like or smell like toasted oat, or toasted bread (pardon me). And what you are really looking for is to find the house that you like the most. Once you've found that house style, know once again, we've got Louis Roederer in California, and we've got Louis Roederer in France and they both try to maintain a certain house style. You will find that house style goes all the way from the non-prestigious Brut, all the way up to the prestige Cuvee. We've got a number of different producers that you may or may not have heard of. We've got Deutz here, and we've also got Charles Heidsieck. There's another thing on the menu...on the label here, is it says "monopole." "Monopole" means that it comes from a single, enclosed vineyard. And, one of the things about champagne that's very important (like all wines), is where the grapes come from and who's tending them. And when you have a vineyard that is enclosed, you tend to have a very, very clear sense of how you are growing; a clear sense of the climate that grows best, and the type of pruning techniques and the type of vitrifying techniques in terms of how they make the wine later on. So, they tend to have a bit more prestige. As you can see, along with this rose, you've got a slightly different color. And that has to do with house style again, and it's about what style they like to use. So, the one thing that I really want to make sure that you walk away with is: up and down the line, there are different uses, but you can find great sparkling and/or champagne wines for a reasonable price and you should think about using it in more than just a celebratory manner."