Bouzy Rouge from Gaston Collard. It’s a thing– an unexpected pleasure, a red wine in Champagne!

Red still wine? In Champagne?

During my visits to Champagne just before harvest in 2018 and at the end of harvest in 2019, I tasted many unexpected pleasures including Gaston Collard’s biodynamic red wine made from Bouzy pinot noir in the barrel and the bottle.

Yes, red wine from Bouzy is a thing– a Champagne thing — and it’s called Coteaux Champenois. What an unexpected pleasure!

Because when we think about wine from Champagne, usually it’s the big sparkling wine houses that come to mind– the labels we see on a regular basis in the grocery store like Moet & Chandon, G. H. Mumm, Laurent Perrier, Bollinger, Veuve Cliquot, Taittinger, Piper-Heidsieck, Nicolas Feuillatte.

Just like when we pop open a bottle of Coca-Cola we expect a specific flavor, we expect these big brands, and their flagship labels, to have a certain, consistent, standard profile which they achieve from their proprietary dosage which is added before bottling.

All roads lead to Champagne! Also– these cookies– biscuits of Reims–another unexpected pleasure.

But Champagne is full of unexpected pleasures!

These include biodynamic wines like Vincent Charlot (read more here) and Leclerc Briant (discussed below) and organic wines too that express the terroir and the vintage, wines full of distinct personalities, wines with little or no added sugar, even red and white still wines like they are allowed to do in Bouzy!

So let’s virtually visit today in advance of the June #Winophiles exploration of unexpected pleasures in Champagne along with some picnic pairings!

Above are photos from our visit to Gaston Collard in Bouzy. We tasted through the wines and visited the cellar where we tasted the Bouzy rouge from the barrel.

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