The Drappier Way

[free to read] Tasting through one of Champagne's most imaginative houses

My first job was playing piano in a restaurant. It was a chintzy white upright - budget Liberace - tucked into a corner of Eastwell Manor’s wood-panelled dining room. Some of the silver-haired diners appreciated the stumblings of a sixteen-year old into the blockwork of modern jazz. Some, though, requested songs that no sixteen-year old should know. I’ll never forget a lady asking me “How have you never heard of Danny Boy??”.

Some tipped quite well. Once, a glass of champagne landed on top of the piano. This was a grand improvement on efforts to sneak into Wetherspoons in Ashford (and only arrived un-intercepted because the starchy manager, aware of my age, was taking a break). I remember glancing over to the table to look at the bottle - Drappier Carte d’Or.

Eastwell Manor, funnily enough, housed the Champagne and Sparkling Wine World Championships last year. I wonder whether the white piano is still there. In 2012, they had their own Drappier bottling for the restaurant, which I hope is still there today (even if the piano is not). It's a house that attracts a great deal of loyalty.

“Grandpapa” Drappier, Michel, was in London with son Hugo this week ably demonstrating why. This is *the* Champagne house of the South; Urville, in the Côte des Bar. They own sixty-five hectares, topping this up with local growers to produce around 1.6 million bottles per year. “We have the grape of Chambertin, the soil of Grand Cru Chablis and the climate of Champagne”, as Michel described the village, elevated at around 380m (100m higher than the top of the Montagne de Reims) on Kimmeridgian limestone. Pinot Noir rules the roost, making up 75% of plantings.

The estate is organic, carbon-neutral, and completely family-owned. I know it’s the sort of generalisation many would wrinkle their noses at, but they don’t feel like House wines, per se. They’re not polished so much as textured. Charcoal rather than fine pencil, full of detail but not afraid of a few bold strokes. You can absolutely understand their success on restaurant lists.

Below are thoughts on the wines tasted and my picks from the portfolio.

Champagnes

The Carte d’Or itself, tasted in magnum, is a good introduction to the style, although I’d be shooting straight for the Brut Nature NV. What we tasted, though, was not standard-issue; there were both cellar-aged and Immersion editions, the second of which spent two years under the sea in Brittany post-disgorgement (it is illegal to ship champagne sur lie outside of the region, so the wine cannot be aged on yeast under the sea). Both wines, 100% Pinot Noirs blended from the 2016/17 vintages, were disgorged in September 2020, both fully open and ripe with pear, peach, strawberry tart and demerara sugar flavours, not brut natures with frank acidity but rather nimble two-act shapes of breadth and narrowness.

The Immersion cuvée, complete with barnacles, undergoes what Michel Drappier called the ‘Bain-Marie’ effect of the ocean, gently rocking the bottles. A nice image, although it is unclear what this actually achieves. More important is the pressure differential; at 4 bar down at 30-40m depth, the wines lose less CO2. “There is around a one bar difference between the wines aged in the cellar and the wines aged in the sea”, he explained. In my notes I found the wines subtly different, the Immersion cuvée a little more clean-cut and pure. It’s certainly not about getting the flavour of the sea into the wine, as has been observed in still wines aged under the sea. The pressure inside a champagne bottle resists ingress of sea water, so the interaction is physical rather than gustatory.

Michel Drappier, at home with the clean grey and black lines of the Barbican centre

Perhaps the most invigorating wine of the day came in the shape of the Quattor Blanc de Blancs NV, a blend of Arbane, Petit Meslier, Blanc Vrai (Pinot Blanc) and Chardonnay, one quarter each (each, of course, being blanc - hence entitled to the name). 2019’s brilliant combination of ripeness, clarity and delicacy came through here, open at the front with some gingerbread, grapefruit, verbena and toasty lemon notes, full of shifting detail and saturated, tense fruit. Drappier often allow oxygen to set to work on their wines to some degree, but here I sensed a wine in fine equilibrium. Not at all a traditional picture of blanc de blancs.

I felt the Clarevallis NV, based on 2017. showed some of the tougher side of the year for Pinot Noir (with 15% Pinot Meunier, 10% Chardonnay and 5% Blanc Vrai in the mix, too). I try not to prejudge 2017s, but I did pick this one before we were told the vintage. Good but probably even better when the next edition comes round. The fascinating Trop m’en Faut, though, was a memorable champagne from 100% Fromenteau (Pinot Gris). As rare as you can get, this, I was hooked on the buzzy, spicy, ginger-and-turmeric top notes, with touches of rose and sweet grapefruit. Intense, pithy-bitter citrus oil as it closes. A very clever play on Pinot Gris’ aromatic side and characterful oak, aged under cork for secondary fermentation. A rare champagne for dry, lightly spicy food perhaps?

Finally, Grande Sendrée 2006, tasted both in a 2023 disgorgement and a 2014 one. The difference was, predictably, enormous. Both were really bookends of an ideal time on cork for this vintage; it might have been nice to have had something in the middle. However they made their point, which is that Drappier’s Prestige release impresses in this sometimes rather heavy year.

Grande Sendrée is 100% Pinot Noir from a plot of pure Kimmeridgian limestone which received 20cm of ash - cendres, becoming sendrée - during a fire of 1836. The cooler North-East orientation of this plot, and its altitude, does mean it is one of those Prestige releases that is more of a refinement than an amplification of the house style.

The new disgorgement was quiet and quite serene at first, floral with fleshy stone fruit, clementine and grapefruit over a warm cereal richness. Dense but not thick or chunky like some 2006s. The 2014 disgorgement was immediately broader and darker in flavour, with malt, dried pear and honey richness. Blackberries and ginger biscuits; an enveloping, outgoing champagne to warm up a rainy evening. I preferred it - just.

The fascinating (and cunningly-named) Trop m’en Faut

Base Wines

Hugo Drappier showed us a few base wines from 2022. Not the usual ones, though - an Arbane and a Petit Meslier. Drappier have about half a hectare of each, which is considerable given that there are only around three hectares of each in the whole of Champagne.

Hugo explained how Arbane is, so far, of unknown parentage, although it is thought to originate from Bar-sur-Aube. It is “the worst grape to grow!”, thanks to low yields and late ripening. Despite this, it was picked in late August in 2022 (as opposed to November), at 11% potential alcohol. Aged in fairly young oak, Arbane is the subtler of the two, a little closer to Chardonnay than Pinot Noir with its wild pear, apple and rosemary notes. A good tang of twisty lemon acidity, but plenty of ripe white peach body in 2022; not a shy or narrow base wine at all.

Petit Meslier is, frankly, a little wackier. Its parentage is known, though; Gouais Blanc and Savagnin from the Jura (indeed Etienne Calsac in Avize treats his still Petit Meslier rather like a Jura white, with skin contact and clay ageing). Despite being in steel, this was more oxidative than the Arbane, dried citrus, brine and wild, tangy apple notes before an interesting green/herbal layer. “You could not make a champagne with Petit Meslier alone”, Hugo ventured. In Quattor NV, though, it certainly finds its place.

The Drappier Way

The fact that a Champagne house comes to London with Arbane base wines, a Pinot Gris champagne and different disgorgements of their Prestige release offers a glimpse of the independent, inquisitive spirit in residence here. The wine portfolio is large now - twelve cuvées, which Hugo believes the marketing department disapproves of - but creative. Families ferment their own cultures, though, and the most interesting of Champagne’s family houses produce wines that bear deep-running, consistent veins of personality, wine after wine. Drappier is certainly one of them.

Drappier are imported in the UK by Berkmann wine

https://www.champagne-drappier.com

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