Yesterday I visited #Champagne Tarlant in Oeuilly. Many of you may know Tarlant already. It’s one of the more prominent ‘Grower Champagne’, it’s exported to many countries around the world and it’s by far and away the most active on social media, so there’s no excuse for not finding out about it.
For those of you who don’t yet know Tarlant it’s worth discovering for all sorts of reasons: the quality of the cuvées, the wide range of champagne available and the innovation of the champagne making. Another stand-out point aboput Tarlant are the first-class back labels which give you a mine of information. In fact I think all back labels should be like this.
Let’s face it, the stuff you find on most champagne labels is pretty useless when it comes to telling you what’s in the bottle. Usually, and the big brands are the worst at this, there are a few lines of meaningless nonsense about tradition, the three classic champagne grape varieties and respect for the environment.
You can find the same wooly stuff on hundreds of different brands and it doesn’t help you one iota to distinguish one champagne from the next and it says nothing about the taste of the wine in the bottle that you’re contemplating buying or are already drinking.
That’s why Tarlant’s labels are so good. They are actually helpful and a minute spent reading them is time well invested. In a few concise lines you can learn everything you need to know before you decided whether or not to purchase the bottle.
The first line ‘Terroir’ tells you a little about the soil and which area of champagne this bottle comes from.
Then you have the proportion of each grape variety used in the blend. That’s crucial information and has an enormous bearing on the taste. As you read on you have find other gems of information to tell you more about the wine:
Which year’s harvests were used
How much reserve wine has been used in the blend
When it was botled
When it was disgorged so you know exactly how many years the bottle spent ageing in the cellar and how long has passed since it left the cellar.
Last bit not least you’re told exactly how much sugar has been added so you have another clue as to whether the champagne in the bottle will be to your personal taste.
This is really useful information; it may be slightly more demanding than the usual anodyne stuff on most bottles, but give me this sort of label any day of the week.
Bravo to Tarlant and let’s hope, for the sake of real champagne lovers, that more champagne makers follow suit
Stay Bubbly,
Jiles
PS
There are only a few things you need to know abut a champagne before you buy it and if you’d like to know more about what these things are, take a look at my e-book