The house of Charles Heidsieck has seen something of a renaissance in recent
years. It's been making waves with a succession of excellent wines, both vintage
and non-vintage. Instrumental in the revival of this house has been Daniel
Thibault, who died in 2002. Thibault was an excellent winemaker and blender, and
has been responsible for what are probably the finest wines ever to bear the
label of Charles Heidsieck.
The origins of Charles Heidsieck lie in 1785, when it started life as a
Champagne company under the auspices of Florenz-Ludwig Heidsieck. This firm
subsequently gave rise to all the Heidsieck Champagne houses; Charles Heidsieck,
Heidsieck & Co Monopole and Piper-Heidsieck. Today both Charles Heidsieck
and Piper-Heidsieck are under the ownership of Rémy Cointreau.
Up until the 1980s Charles Heidsieck produced a sound range of wines
including a non-vintage Brut, a vintage wine and a
prestige cuvée Champagne Charlie. But with the arrival of Daniel Thibault, and the backing of Rémy Cointreau, this was to change. Thibault's coup de grace was to convert the
perfectly serviceable non vintage wine into a Brut Réserve. In order to achieve
this Rémy Cointreau permitted sales to fall by millions of bottles so that
Thibault could build up some reserve stocks.
Whereas most houses have only a few
vintages at their disposal for the production of the non vintage cuvée,
Thibault had over eight vintages. Masterful blending of these older wines into
the non vintage cuvée - which is, you may or may not agree, beginning to sound
more like a multi-vintage prestige cuvée along the lines of Krug NV or
Laurent-Perrier's Grand Siecle - with the reserve wines comprising up to 40% of
the final blend, is what results in such a fabulous wine. Fabulous in it's own
right, but particularly so if value for money is a concern.
Further success came in 1997 when the already successful Brut Réserve was
relaunched as the Brut Réserve Mis en Caves. With this change in designation
Thibault was able to provide information regarding the non vintage cuvée by
providing a date of cellaring on the label. The cellaring date follows on from
the dated of the base vintage, so the Mis en Caves 1992, the first release, was
comprised of 40% reserve wines and 60% the 1991 vintage. This model has
continued with great success, with one of the most successful blends being the
Mis en Caves 1997, based on the outstanding 1996 vintage. Overall I believe that
this practice has been a great success for the consumer, who now actually know
what they are drinking
