MONMARTHE CHAMPAGNE

 We like to drink Champagne and good quality methode traditionelle wines at our house and, now that we are older and drinking less (but better) we tend to drink Champagne more often than we used to.

We share a bottle and, with the Stuart crystal Champagne glasses we use, get 4 glasses out of the bottle. The pours are closely scrutinised for fairness of two glasses each - a consideration we don't apply to other types of wine.

This, not every weekend, is a Saturday evening treat while playing pool in the 'snooker room' as dinner is cooking in the oven.

Her Indoors (the title much more appropriate in the post 2020 Covid days as she works from home mostly now) and I rarely, if ever, open, let alone consume a 750 ml bottle on our own and, while with proper corking (the Broken Shed vodka bottle cork is ideal) the opened  Champagne is good for a day or two in the fridge we tend to only open a bottle when the two of us are together.

I rarely travel nowadays but she does - visiting friends and relatives and on secondment with her work both domestic and overseas. This creates as you can see, a conundrum when we are separated on weekends.

In previous posts I've recounted how I'm always on the hunt for good quality half bottles of wine. These are largely a thing of the past with, when they are available, being wines at the bottom end of the price and quality scale which, quite frankly is a nonsense. Either that or they are invariably fortified or 'sticky wines' neither which we consume anymore. We're a ready market for good quality pinot noir, chardonnay, rose and zinfandel or Italian reds but sadly there are never any on offer.

The same goes for Champagne and good quality sparkling (Methode-style). Our favourite NZ bubbles are Deutz rose and Blanc de Blanc but the manufacturers haven't thought to put these in half bottles. They do make half bottles of the standard Deutz and decanted bottles of 200ml 'piccolos' but. while reliable we find this blend a bit simple. We do buy the odd, when available, 375ml bottles of Grand Marque Champagnes (Veuve Cliquot, Pol Roger, Lanson, Louis Roederer etc) but they are usually prohibitively expensive.

Last week I found, via an internet search a small distributor Three French Vines selling an interesting boutique selection including 375ml bottles of Monmarthe Champagne.

The price was good (about $33 a bottle) so I bought a dozen. These will be good to keep for occasions when either of us a alone or when we just feel like one glass each. I hadn't heard of Montmarthe before so had a look at the description on the Three French Vines website and on other websites.

Three French Vines had this to say:

All good but I don't place much faith in wine reviews and competition results unless they are top competitions and very reliable wine scribes. It told me that the Champagne is 49% pinot noir and 40% pinot meunier with the rest from chardonnay grapes. It indicates a style that the description matches - ripe, toasty and soft.

Nathalie MacLean, a wine writer whose reviews I trust had this to say:

Natalie's Score: 91/100

Monmarthe Secret De Famille is a 1er Cru Brut Champagne, a solid and fruity traditional method bubble produced by a sixth-generation champagne family. The wine has been aged on its lees for two years and is dry, zesty and toasty with white-fleshed stone fruit, honeyed nut, baked pastry flavours on a fine and persistent mousse with a zesty finish. Very nice now. Chill and enjoy it on its own or with chips and dip.

OK, not glowing but suggests that the wine is solid and reliable.

The wine arrived on Friday and I opened a bottle yesterday.

While clearly not being of Grande Marque standard it is of course half the price of a Grande Marque. The wine is pretty much to the descriptions given. I detected a nuttiness to it that was pleasant and added to the roundness. The wine seems to have bottle age but the disgorgement date etched on the bottle is obtuse which is annoying. Overall though it's fit to purpose and we will use it up over the next 6 months or so.