Centre Vinicole Champagne Nicolas Feuillatte

by Paige Donner

A few interesting facts set the champagne brand of Nicolas Feuillatte apart from the others.

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For one, it's a champagne house that is cooperatively owned. Just outside of the champagne capital of Épernay in France, in the little village of Chouilly, the modern and sleek facilities whose cellars are both above and beneath the ground, ferment, disgorge and age 300,000 hectoliters of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Petit Meunier destined to become top-selling champagne every year. That translates into 21.9 million bottles of champagne in 2011.

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The house doesn't actually own any vineyards, however. Those are all owned by the growers. They get privileges for being part of the vast co-operative, the growers do. Privileges such as use of state-of-the-art bottling and riddling machines for example, when they have enough leftover from their growing season and harvests to offer a limited supply under their own champagne label - if they so choose.

It's one of the most, if not the most, successful "cave co-operatives" in the wine industry in France. The numbers are impressive:

• 5,000 growers (that comprise the Producers Union)
• 82 smaller cooperatives (who form the larger NF brand)
• 350 wine presses
• 21.9 million bottles produced in 2011

And what's more, Nicolas Feuillatte is a real person. Still alive and kicking today.

It was in the early 70's when he inherited 10ha of champagne vineyards. After a few years' harvests and a successful brand launching, notably in the U.S. among the jet-set and the glitterati, he accepted the offer of the union of growers to lend his brand to their champagnes. It was, quite evidently, a match made in heaven.

Recommend: If you get the chance, try the 1996 vintage Brut. Elegant, generous, laced with a refined minerality.

All photos c. 2012 Paige Donner

YOU WILL LOVE MY WINEPICKS! - ♥CHÉRIE DU VIN

*LOCAL FOOD AND WINE *

 

Wine Evenings at Restaurant 114 Faubourg St. Honore

By Paige Donner

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At the epicenter of chic, where rue Fbg. St. Honoré meets Avenue Matignon in the shade of Paris's Élysée gardens, is where you will find the restaurant 114 Faubourg. 
As part of Le Bristol Hotel, but with a separate entrance and in an adjoining building, the lunch and dinner restaurant headed up by chef Eric Desbordes along with his chief Sommelier, Marco Pelletier, is altogether a destination unto itself.

Tomes can and likely will be written about the talented young chef's French cuisine, but focus here is on the restaurant's once-monthly Wine Tasting Evenings, held the first Monday of the month, to be precise.

In a city that gathers the best wines of one of the best wine-producing countries in the world, there is an unexpected and surprising dearth of good wine-tasting evenings organized for the amateur/enthusiast and/or the visiting tourist. A once-monthly excellent wine and tailored food-pairing evening open to 25 guests is hardly going to make a dent in what should be a huge demand for this type of food and wine evening event, but, at least it's a start...

Marco Pelletier, an adoptive Parisian whose authentic Canadianisms pepper his oenological descriptions and explanations, shines as the evening's champion organizer. He not only invites the winemakers to Paris so they can talk about their "treasures," but also curates his wines with that delicate care that only a professional with great passion and reverence for his metier can muster.

Evenings start at around 7:30 with a tasting flight of four wines during which the winemaker shares tales about the vintages he's pouring. The 114 Faubourg team takes care of hosting duties, which allows these extraordinary cultivators of French wines to simply elaborate the stories of their wines in the company of the people who have come to sip and savor their particular expressions of terroir.

According to Pelletier, there is no commercial element to the evening. The winemakers are not honored guests invited to “sell” their wines. "They just come to share the story behind the wines and vintages being poured for the evening. The winemakers are often small producers that I've usually already chosen to feature and work with or who have already worked with Le Bristol for a long time," explains Pelletier. "These are the 'Haute Couture' of winegrowers."

Read more: http://technorati.com/lifestyle/travel/article/wine-evenings-at-restaurant-114-rue/#ixzz1w6g4Kbg5