Make this your Crémant summer

Make this your Crémant summer

If ever there was a summer for surrendering to the sun, finding a shady spot and pulling the cork on something which opens with a ‘pop’, it was this year’s.

There’s simply no style of wine that meets the summer quite like sparkling. Cold, bright, vivacious, elegant. Sheer, joyful sunlight in a bottle.

Not to mention that, well, people just love bubbles.

And since we’ve recently been (rightly) singing the praises of English Sparkling through our friends at Hambledon, today we’re turning our lens to another of our absolute favourite categories of fizz: crémant.

France’s sparkling inside-tip

Is there a better value sparkling wine than crémant? Not in our book.

A wine made in the same way as Champagne … conveying all the classic flavours of the méthode traditionnelle … at remarkably affordable prices.

Perhaps because Champagne catches so much of the light in France, it can feel that crémant doesn’t quite get a look-in.

Yet across some of the country’s marquee regions, the quality of crémant has never been better than it is today.

Our Tour de France of crémant excellence

From Burgundy to the Loire to Alsace, producers are making traditional method sparkling wines every bit the equal of Champagne.

Our friends at Simmonet-Febvre make the only Crémant de Bourgogne still produced in Chablis, where the combination of latitude and Chablis’ famous limestone soil make for perfect sparkling wine conditions.

Indeed, although their still wine is stunning, sparkling wine was the original purpose of the winery when it was founded in the 1840s.

Their Brut Blanc and Brut Rosé combine vivid brightness with thrilling freshness and a beautiful balance of fruit, lees and refreshing minerality. Then their P100 Blanc de Noir offers depth and weight – the truly gastronomic face of Crémant.

Old dog, new tricks

You’re never too old to learn something new … and do it exceptionally. Famille Hugel, in Alsace, have been making wine since 1639. But it was only from the 2019 vintage that they produced their first Crémant – fulfilling a long-held family dream.

Drawing on the regional specialities of Alsace, their Vintage Crémant blends Pinot Noir, Riesling and Pinot Gris. The hugely successful inaugural vintage was followed by a vibrant, precise, Extra Brut 2020 and the release of the family’s first Non-Vintage. New tricks indeed.

Loire elegance with Ladoucette

Perhaps the most seasonally appropriate crémants of all. Just like so many of the region’s still whites, the hallmark of great Loire crémant is light, brisk, mineral freshness – in other words, the perfect sparkling wine for sitting outside with in summer.

De Ladoucette make their Marc Brédif NV in the hallowed appellation of Vouvray, home to perhaps the Loire’s best sparkling wines, and arguably the world’s finest Chenin Blanc.

Aged three years on lees – far longer than the required length for non-vintage champagne, let alone crémant, this is a drink of almost joyful finesse; all the floral honeys and orchard fruits of great Chenin wafting over the autolytic toastiness of extended lees contact.

One of the world’s great sparkling styles

It’s so easy to fall into the trap – and we’ve clearly fallen heavily into it ourselves today – of simply considering crémant with reference and by comparison to champagne … and in terms of its albeit incredible value.

But, as the wines of Simonnet-Febvre, Hugel and De Ladoucette prove, great crémant shouldn’t be considered as an ‘alternative’ – an ‘instead of’.

Rather these are wines of consummate craft and care, with flavours deeply rooted in regional grapes and terroir alongside the highest standards of traditional method practice.

Never mind comparisons to champagne – or indeed to English Sparkling wine. These are simply beautiful, elegant, flavourful and distinctive traditional method sparkling wines which deserve their place in the global pantheon.

Not to mention, in your glass for the rest of summer (and beyond).