Champagne Football - A connoisseur's guide

 

Expert vigneron Rob from Oakleigh writes:

 

My only quibble with your description of Geelong in Round 4 as "Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1945 vintage champagne football" is that Chateau Mouton Rothschild is a Cab.Sauv/Merlot blend from Pauillac in Bordeaux - it is NOT champagne.

 

Although I'd rather liken a great game of footy to a great dry red than a
sparkling Pinot Noir/Chardonnay from that bit of north-east France, somehow "claret football" doesn't have the same ring to it.

 

"Claret football", however, could perhaps be used to describe a big donnybrook, such as the "bloodbath".

 

It's funny that you said Chateau Mouton-Rothschild 1945 though, as I believe 1945 was one of the great vintages for red Bordeaux (i.e. "claret") in the 20th century and wasn't the G.F. that year - played between South Melbourne and Carlton? - one of the greatest bloodbaths ever?

 

For future reference if you wanted to refer to a big donnybrook as being one of the best examples of "claret football" then I would say to use the Bordeaux vintages of 1947, 1961, 1970, 1982, 1990, or 2000 and as for Chateaux, any of Latour, Lafite-Rothschild, Mouton-Rothschild, or Margaux should suffice. A brawl likened to a '61 or '82 Latour would have to be something pretty special!

 

When Adelaide are playing well it is often referred to as "chardonnay football," but if you wanted to be really poncey you could call it Corton-Charlemagne or Montrachet football... these being the names of villages in Burgundy which supposedly make the best chardonnays in the world. For example, let's say Adelaide runs amok in the Grand Final this year with the sort of lairy flair not seen since the 70s, then one might say, "this wasn't a Jacobs Creek Chardonnay, this was a fucking Grand Cru Montrachet!"

 

For future reference, the most famous/high quality vintage of champagne is a difficult question to answer.

 

One could go down the road of using Moet et Chandon's luxury cuvee "Dom Perignon" as the pinnacle of champagne football but I think this is far too obvious and bordering on the vulgar. Similarly vulgar - unfortunately - would be to use the house of Krug. Some of this vulgarity could be obviated if one were to pick Krug's single vineyard cuvee "Clos de Mesnil" but this is probably far too recherche. Then there are a whole host of small champagne producers... but who's heard of Henriot or Gosset, for example, in the broader community?

 

The Match of the Decade, the prelim. final between Nth Melb and Geelong in 1994, for example, ought to be compared to a Pol Roger "Cuvee Sir Winston Churchill" but this is too much of a mouthful - pardon the pun. No, you can't go past good old Bollinger for champagne football.

 

Vintages? Again, tough call. Champagne is like Port in that it relies on blending for most of the output; only if a year is considered to be worth it is it "declared" as a vintage and wine made only from that year is released as Vintage Champagne (as opposed to Non-Vintage) or Vintage Port (as opposed to Tawny Port, and so on).

 

Some vintages for Champagne? 1985, 1990, 1995, 1996, etc. come to mind but if you wanted to be clever you could say something like (say, for a great game between the bottom two sides in August), "it was like a 1928 Pol Roger, beautiful as an idea but utterly pointless". Really old bottles of champagne even from the best vintages are of interest mostly only to eccentric English wine buffs... no matter how well-cellared, the bubbles have long gone.

 

No, the safe call would be to liken a great game to an '85 Bollinger "Grand Annee", for example.

 

Anyway, away from football, if you need to know (e.g. you are entertaining legal or political luminaries) the basics about what is made where in France then...

·        Red Bordeaux (i.e. claret to an Englishman) - Cab. Sauv., Merlot, Cab. Franc, etc.

·        White Bordeaux (both sweet, i.e. Sauternes, and dry) - Semillon, Sauv. Blanc.

·        White Burgundy (and Chablis) - Chardonnay

·        Red Burgundy - Pinot Noir

·        Champagne - Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Pinot Meunier

·        Rhone valley reds (e.g. Chateauneuf du Pape, Hermitage, etc.) - Shiraz (Syrah), Grenache, Mouvedre, etc.

 

And a few others worth knowing:

·        Alsace whites - Riesling, Pinot Gris, etc.

·        Loire Valley - various but an important area is Sancerre where Sauvignon Blanc is made in a completely different style to New World, esp. New Zealand, Sauv. Blancs.

 

Of course, the complete picture is much bigger than this, e.g. there is a
lot a sparkling wine made in France outside the Champagne region but it
can't be called Champagne obviously. In many cases it's not even made from the same grape varieties. Note, though, that nearly every producer in Australia who makes sparkling wine does so from the "correct" (i.e. Champenois) varities of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and sometimes Pinot Meunier.

 

At the lower price point, i.e. $10, it's interesting to see that a Jacobs Creek sparkling says what it's made from (i.e. the "correct" varieties) whereas Yellowglen's cheapy "Yellow" and "Pink" offerings don't so they could be made from Sultanas for all you know. At that price point you know what to choose, you have been warned...