Joseph Perrier is the only Champagne house to be rooted since the beginning at Châlons-en-Champagne, a town formerly covered with vineyards. The house celebrates its 190th anniversary this year!
Family-owned since its creation, Joseph Perrier is loyal to the town where it settled in 1825, Châlons-en-Champagne. The house has trust in the Dervin family since four generations to craft the Joseph Perrier Champagne; Jérôme succeeded Claude and took over the position of cellar master in early 2015. The house is very attached to the vineyard of the Marne valley that has just been registered as world heritage! Under Patrick Martin's management, the vineyard – a country luxury – receives the cares adapted to sustainable viticulture; for example he practices mating disruption.
In its fundamentals, the house is historical and humane. In the cellars—ancient Gallo-Roman chalk quarries—the men work like craftsmen, put the bottles neck down, remove them from the racks, riddle and disgorge the vintages and prestige cuvées by hand! Each bottling is handled on average by ten men… The production of this Champagne for connoisseurs also has a humane size although the house exports to 45 countries.
The recognition of Joseph Perrier cuvées, named “Royal” by Queen Victoria and her son King Edward VII, contributed to the influence of the house. The historical cuvées still bear the mention on their labels. In the early century the range included a Brut, Rosé, Blanc de Blancs, Half-Dry, vintage Champagnes and a Blanc de Noirs that soon disappeared from the market.
Current chairman Jean-Claude Fourmon—who created in the 80s the cuvée “Joséphine” that ranked among the greatest Champagnes, then in the 2000s a much appreciated Blanc de Blancs and a vintage Rosé in a Victorian bottle—revives in 2015 the yesterday's Blanc de Noirs “Royal” and updates. It Crafted with only Pinot Noir, single vineyard Cumières classed Premier Cru, from one plot “La Côte à Bras”, a family property since seven generations, the cuvée Blanc de Noirs Joseph Perrier ages in a separate vat then in bottles for six years, before being disgorged by small quantities and dosed with 0 gram/litre. It is a Brut Nature that has been tasted for the very first time by Philippe Jamesse, Head Sommelier of Les Crayères, who “appreciated it for the identity referent to its variety, the Pinot Noir from Cumières”, more simply for its organoleptic. As Jérôme Dervin explains, “this Champagne has a strong personality, it is iodized. It opens up on scents of honey and mirabelle plums, than asserts itself with flavours of raspberry evolving towards dried cherry, kirsch and dried fruits that open the way to a vivd and intense aftertaste”. It can be served for the aperitif with oysters or accompany a meal with oven-roast John Dory on the skin or Bigorre black pig streaky bacon. The saltiness of this wine turns the Joseph Perrier Blanc de Noirs oceanic!
To mark the event Jean-Claude Fourmon took out of his wine library dug in the chalk three Brut vintages of the last century.
1975, excellent weather conditions, a great vintage. This cuvée was blended with the three Champagne grape varieties (50% Pinot Noir, 45% Chardonnay and 5% Pinot Meunier), twenty growths (Cumières, Chouilly, Bergères les Vertus, Sacy…). It has an empyreumatic profile with fruits, a great finesse, an aftertaste that carries you away.
1985, when the winter broke the records of cold temperature, the musts exuded promising scents during fermentation. This vintage mingles the two grape varieties Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in equal parts, some twenty growths (Cumières, Damery, Hautvillers and Verneuil). This wine now displays an incredible freshness and reveals the complexity that built up the fame of the Jseph Perrier vintage Champagnes.
1995, a very well balanced year at harvest (between alcoholic content and acidity), foreshadowed fine, vivid and full-bodied wines. This vintage was blended like the 1975 with the three grape varieties, from some twenty growths. It now imposes itself like a pleasurable wine in which the aromas of citrus, white-fleshed and exotic fruits dominate.
The last word to the chairman: “These three cuvées, wines worth ageing, have a beautiful future ahead!”
Sylvia van der Velden
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