Champagne in Asia

A clever marketing slight of hand has mainstreamed its way into sommelier practice in Japan.  It goes something like this:  I’ve just joined two friends for lunch at a Michelin starred restaurant in Tokyo’s Ginza.  No sooner has my butt made contact with the soft furnishings then an ingratiating waitress sidles up aching to service.  No menu, no wine list, no pitcher of water and forget the napkin for a moment - just a warm smile and a silken offer of a glass of Champagne.  Not a cocktail, not a sherry, not the open-ended option of an aperitif.  My lip curls slightly.  I explain that I’ve just spent the morning tasting around 50 Champagnes and Sparkling wines and have around the same amount again waiting to be tasted that afternoon.  Water please.  A bewildered cloud passes over her face but I can see she’s still hopeful.  Just water, I confirm.She pauses to make sure she’s heard right and retreats crestfallen.  I cast my eyes across the room to where several tables are taken by ladies lunching, fashionably sipping bubbles from flutes while they chatter.  With the unceremonious arrival of my drink I realize that “just water” is about as chic in this town as a Pina Colada with a big umbrella and sparklers coming out of it.

The thing is this is not just happening in Michelin star restaurants.  I walk into Yakitori-ya and am coaxed into the fizz.  And this practice appears to be spreading throughout the restaurants of Asia.

In 2007 global Champagne exports hit an all-time high, driven largely by increased Asian demand.  According to the CIVC, Japan is now the 6th largest export market for Champagne with direct imports up by 14.4 percent – one of the biggest global market rises.

After Japan, Singapore is the second largest market for Champagne in Asia, seeing an even greater 17% increase in imports in 2007.  Although Japan’s population is more than 28 times larger than Singapore, this small city-state consumes an eighth as much as Japan and more then Hong Kong.  The bubbly positively pervades this Singaporean culture of aspirational stretch.  You can now take a “Moet & Chandon Flight” on the Singapore Flyer (a big wheel / Ferris wheel) or buy mooncakes stuffed with the stuff.  And sponsored Champagne brunches must account for more than a few splashes of the market’s consumption.  Honestly, I haven’t found a quality hotel here that doesn’t have a restaurant doing a Sunday free-flow Champagne brunch.  (A couple of my favorite Sunday hang-outs include brunch at The Ritz-Carlton Millennia Singapore’s Greenhouse Restaurant with free-flow Moet & Chandon or there’s free-flow Taittinger at the new Jade Restaurant’s brunch in the stunning Fullerton Hotel.)

2007 Champagne Exports to Asia (in bottles)
Source:  Comite Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne

The Asian market as a whole commands about 9 percent of Champagne’s exports, more then the entire USA market, with Japan accounting for around 2.7 percent and Singapore 0.75%.  However, I suspect you can add a few percentage points to all of these figures if you take into account that thorn in the Grande Marques’ side:  the grey market. 

Most of the importers that I’ve spoken to in Asia claim to supplement their Champagne stocks bought directly from the houses (locally or ex cellars) with some grey market or parallel imports stock.  This is due largely to the fact that most (if not all) Champagne houses sell their wines into different markets at different prices, depending upon their aspirations for that market what they believe consumers in the different markets are prepared to pay.  Therefore it is often cheaper to purchase from another country such as Italy or Germany then to go through the “proper” channels.  Another issue is that market demand often exceeds market allocation.  In other words, the ten or so cases of a coveted Champagne that has been rationed out to the Singapore market is not, according to its consumers, enough.  I recently spoke with a buyer for one of Sing’s top fine wine merchants who confirmed that every year customer demand forces him to buy some grey current-release stock from EU suppliers, mainly of the prestige cuvees such as Cristal, Dom Perignon and Krug vintage and/or Clos du Mesnil.

All this grey marketing must be the source of more then few pricing headaches in the hallowed boardrooms of Champagne because pricing in Asia is all over the place and frankly nothing short of a chaotic mess.  In Japan I regularly see Veuve Clicquot sold at the same price or cheaper then Moet – enough to have Bernard Arnault reaching for the paracetamol I’m sure.  And while Tokyo wine shops mostly sell Moet for below 5000 yen, in Duty Free at Narita you’ll have to pay 5300 yen or more.  In Singapore I’m cruising the aisles of one of the country’s largest supermarket group’s outlets only to discover that Moet Brut NV is pricier then Pol Roger Brut NV while Charles Heidsieck Brut NV is costlier then both.  But this brand owner’s / agent’s grey market migraine is in fact not so bad for us consumers because if you shop around over here you can pick up some really great bargains.  Mind you I didn’t say cheap.  This is Champagne.

While we’re on the subject, what exactly are we getting for our money? 

I returned to Tokyo in September 2008 to conduct a tasting of more than 100 of Asia’s top selling sparkling wines and Brut NV Champagnes.  I’ll discuss the Sparkling Wines in the next article.  While it’s not always my practice, I conducted these tastings blind.  There were two reasons for this:  1) it’s fun to do it when you can 2) I wanted to see, as objectively as possible, how my personal ranking over many years of tasting/drinking Champagne and Sparklers measured-up this time purely in terms of quality.  I am very pleased that I did this and was certainly surprised by some of my results.

General impressions of the Brut NV tasting:  I’ll admit it is good sport to bemoan the price of Champagne and of course all the dodgies the Champenois would like to brush under the carpet.  The subsoil of rubbish that has a nasty habit of breaking surface.  Sur latte.  The glamour and glitz of marketing spin…that is in fact 50% or more of the price you pay.  The recent plans to expand the AOC region.  Pinot Meunier.  Yada, yada.  But at the risk of interjecting an unfashionable “however”, I genuinely feel that there is no delimited region elsewhere that has as good a quality hit-rate as Champagne.  True, there are very few Champagnes that deserve the dizzying heights of 95+ point scores, but on this occasion (and many others) most of my Brut NV scores are between 85-92 points.  This is based purely upon what I find in the glass.  That’s amazing.  What’s more it cannot be said of any other region of the world.

What makes a superlative Brut NV?  Well apart from all the usual criteria (balance, intensity, complexity, length) there’s the quality of bubbles, autolytic (lees) character and use of dosage to consider.  (BTW, for interest’s sake I threw a couple of non-dosaged wines into the tasting to see how they compared.)  One critical point I’d like to make is that Brut NVs should be ready to drink from the moment they’re released.  Although I quite like many of the wines with a bit of extra bottle age, they should never be released when they are overly tight, austere and with obvious need of further time in cellar.  Therefore in my notes and scores Brut NVs were slightly penalized if they displayed overly youthful tightness and could benefit significantly from more time on the lees, further time in the bottle prior to release, or both.  I suspect with the surging global demand for Champagne, some of the houses may be under pressure to release stock slightly sooner then they did when demand hasn’t been so high.  This factor, along with the inevitable (often imperceptible but not always) changes of blend every year means that you can wake up one morning to discover that your cherished and trusted brand ain’t what it used to be.

Below you’ll find a rating of how the Brut NV Champagnes fared and their scores.  I’ve taken the extra step of grouping the Champagnes into one of four price categories, evident in the following color coding system as follows.  Unfortunately one important shortcoming of this color coding is the Champagne pricing debacle that exists in Asia, not just due to the grey market factor but because the are a multitude of shipping and distribution methods going on that can really throw the brand owner’s pricing intentions out of whack, depending upon his/her importer’s logistical savvy and distribution abilities.  My coding takes a global account of where it appears the houses would like to see their Champagnes positioned, disregarding local anomalies.  In any case, I hope the coding helps you to determine if you’re getting the best value for money with your brand. 

Price range color coding:

Blue = Ultra Premium Priced Champagne
Red = Premium Priced Champagne
Green = Mid-Range Priced Champagne
Black = Value Priced Champagne

Ranking of Recommended Brut NV Champagnes: