Moët’s parent, LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy), is a global conglomerate of premium brands, headed by the formidable Bernard Arnault. In champagne parlance, LVMH’s houses (brands) include: Moët, Dom Perignon, Krug, Veuve Clicquot, Ruinart and Mercier.  In aggregate, between 20-25% of all champagne production falls under the LVMH umbrella.

What is interesting is the way Moët looks to grow its image and market share as the World emerges from recession.  Category sponsorship (champagne) of the 82nd Oscars this year might be a master-stroke.

We note that Moët chose to give away golden jeroboams (or are they bigger?) to specific Oscar winners - which at Park Lane we know our customers also find popular as personalised champagne gifts…

AND - Moet also personalised bottles (or are they mags?) for each category winner.  Not quite a fully personalised label (but then that wouldn’t be brand reinforcement)  but the closest they could get.  Now this is the thing:  it is exactly where we wanted to come from back in 1994 when we started out - personalising a well known brand - but we couldn’t find a house to play ball with us and that included Moët which was a preferred partner.

I doubt Moët will introduce this concept wholescale in the UK but at little old Park Lane maybe we should be content by remembering that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery…

Arguably the World’s most important brand of champagne recognises the importance of personalising the bottles for the end recipient;  hmmm - now where have we heard that before?!

We all get spam emails and countless viagra offers, etc., but duff transactions with validated cards?  Now that IS news - at least to us anyway.  Beware any overseas originating credit card registered to a UK address, even if all the addresses match…

All remedied now with a new layer of security in place but curious how Barclays Merchant Services, Sagepay and 3rd Man do not have a cohesive policy of prevention between them - thanks guys! Any loss is born by the merchant, of course.

I wonder, though, if one can get caught up in a suckers loop of some sort?  Reason being, we have now had two stolen or cloned UK cards (again validated?!) attempt to be used to purchase champagne - but our human alarm bells rang because the purchases did not fit with the normal pattern so we checked in the old fashioned way and you know what:  our telephone messages were not returned…  Beware Rebecca Romero - but not the real one, of course!

And now we have a gazillion spam comments attached to various blog posts and my email account has been hijacked - apologies if I have not sanctioned your genuine comment or responded to an email query but I will as soon as normal service is resumed.

Roll on spring - and an end to this perpetual cold (and rain) - thanks Withnail; we do need a jukebox, methinks!

Pip pip.

Since then, the CIVC (Champagne trade body), advise a 12% fall in UK import in 2008 and a further 30% fall in 2009 (figures only available to the end of October so not yet officially published).

A net fall of 39.4% peak to trough would equate on a full year basis to a 15.37m bottle reduction from 2007  - meaning the UK is forecast to have imported under 24m bottles which is back to 1999 levels.  And that before any de-stocking is taken into consideration.  Ouch!

Reasons for this:  champagne has been out of fashion;  there has been little to celebrate and the cost has soared by over 30% - mainly due to the collapse of £/€ relationship - as well as numerous Government duty increases and high historic grape prices at 2007 and 2008 harvest feeding through to the cost of the bubbly ex cellars.

So, are we through the dip or trough?  Let’s hope so.  Aside from diminished merriment, the implications in France have already been extremely serious with harvest yields reduced by negotiation to below 10,000kg/ha from 14,400 the previous year as I reported in harvest yields.  Assuming consumption steadies at 2009 levels then the inventory in French cellars will fall back into line over the next 24 months with price and product stability holding.

BUT - the big question is what about the planned Appellation extension of 12,000ha?  This was due to start coming on line in 2020 to satiate the demand from all the emerging champagne markets, particularly China, Russia and India.  Interesting to see from the CIVC’s own figures that these three countries combined show an import decline to October 2009 in excess of 50% - to just under 1m  bottles in total.

Now that is sobering:  put simply, in 2009 1/3 of the World’s population consumed as many bottles of champagne as 2.5m people did in the UK…

Don’t have nightmares.

Love it so much, in fact, that we had it at our wedding reception - with our own personalised label of course - twelve years ago;  pioneers then as most quaffers only knew Laurent Perrier as THE rose champagne.

But the World has changed;  all the big houses produce pink and some of the biggest brands have uber-premium vintage rose - think Veuve Clicquot Grande Dame rose - that is also uber-costly - £200+ as opposed to under £100 for the GD white 1998!   Bollinger introduced their special pink to the market in 2008.

So what’s the difference?  The usual vintage/non-vintage distinction applies, as does the blending process (different grapes and vineyards).   Principally but obviously it is the colour:  the old way of production was to macerate the skins of the black grapes - ie. allow the colour to bleed out into the pressing and then use this in the blend.   The more modern way is conventional blending - adding still red wine (pinot noir normally) to the white blend at the time of bottling.

The paler more blush coloured pinks are typically from the maceration technique and to my mind are usually softer and more approachable.  Just a personal opinion, though.

Either way, rose champagne is perfect for a special Wedding day, perfect for Valentine’s day, perfect for Mother’s day and equally perfect for every day;  enjoy!

As the year unfurled, so it became obvious that “personalised champagne” is what people think of when they want their own champagne - and we know this thanks to the mountain of information that Google collects, analyses and regurgitates so this cannot be wrong!

And this because champagne is all about perception.  Champagne is a highly regulated region and its wines highly prized:  quality of product and respect for the brand is what perpetuates the magic, image and romance of the bubbly.  This is why there is always surprise when an unknown champagne is ranked above a known brand champagne at a blind tasting - and yet both champagnes will use the same grapes blended in the same way to the same rules.  On paper the brand champagne is perceived as being superior and typically it will be more expensive to buy and yet because it is a known brand, the consumer perceives it to be better quality.

So at Park Lane, and without a known brand of champagne to personalise, we still want a polished halo  imagined to be hovering over us.  We go to great lengths to choose good quality champagnes and to ensure all our products are appropriately labelled, including a deluxe back label, and properly presented;  typically every bottle is wrapped in tissue paper before packing and despatch.

It is the little things that do count and with us the little things come as standard.  If there was a measure of how far we came in 2009, it is probably not the number of bottles sold, not the conversion rate of online visitors to customers and not the cost per acquisition of a new customer.  It is actually the significant number of customers who voluntarily contacted us to say how impressed they were by our levels of service, general customer care and attention to detail.  All of which come as standard.

Now for 2010 we can concentrate on improving those other stats as well!

Pip pip.

There seems to be a tone of optimism in the air - certainly it is being peddled by the UK media.  It makes a change, certainly, from the steady trickle of gloom in 2009 (and on that note where has Robert Preston gone?) and let’s hope it is justified.  The general election campaigns appear to have started (David Cameron’s email today told me that there were under 150 days to go until election time) and banking bonuses are still in the headlines.

While a lot of people seem very pleased to see the back of 2009, for us it was a year of consolidation and planning.  If the noughties was the digital decade, maybe we were late onto it but we did get there and thank goodness we did.  Sadly my old S2 Land Rover didn’t as terminal chassis rot called time…

PLC online made its debut and we are very pleased with the results - and seemingly so are our satisfied customers.  If a New Year resolution for 2009 had been for us to sell champagne to buyers from all the 7 continents of the World, I would have thought it impossible;  as I write we are still waiting for a buyer from Antartica to test our skills….!

We also took our hamper range at Frisky Partridge online and were almost overwhelmed by the success.  One client was very pleased with the bespoke internet offer for their business which we created - judging by the surge in champagne that was needed to quench the order flow - and we have had invitations to take the online side in several new and exciting directions.

And onwards we march.  Personalised champagne online will be even simpler and even better when the new version of our label maker hits the www towards springtime.  Our traditional corporate clients will each have a bespoke micro site and be able to order online if they wish.  Embracing technology has certainly made our business better:  more efficient and more focused, yet perversely also more personal.

What about the bubbly itself?  Well, 2009 was a super vintage and the champagnes will be delicious when Park Lane start shipping them in 2013.  The region at the moment is suffering with the same chill that the UK is - except that it is forecast to drop below -10c later this week.  The vines are hibernating at the moment but prolonged temperatures of extreme cold can seriously damage the prospects for this year’s harvest.  In January 1985, the temperature barely rose above -25c for several days and nearly 15% of the region’s entire vineyards needed replanting - 5,000 hectares in total;  these frosts were retrospectively known as the “frosts of the century”.

Aspersion anybody?  Aspersion irrigation really; so called because it comes from the traditional meaning of aspersion being to sprinkle with water, as in baptise.  When spring frosts threaten young vine shoots, some Champenoise Vignerons spray their vines with fine jets of water so that the bud itself is actually protected inside a mini igloo from the very cold air currents;  more of an April fallback but nonetheless interesting.

Apologies for the silence throughout December but the whole team was running extra fast as the hamster wheel of customer requests just seemed to spin faster and faster and faster - right up until the 23rd!

There will be lots more to come from us as this year unravels.  Please do keep the suggestions and feedback coming - and thank you all for your support thus far.  Bon annee.

I was amazed by the amount of unpicked fruit on the vines during my October visit to the Champagne region.  The reason was the restriction in yield at harvest due to the excess buildup of bottles as global demand slumped;  permitted yield was down from 14,000kg/hectare at 2008 harvest to 9,700 kg/hectare, as I have already covered.

This is not the whole story, though.  The Champenois have a cunning buffer stock called blockage which is held by the houses.  Effectively this is pressed juice that cannot be used for a certain time and which is intended to subsidise yield in the event of a truly awful harvest in the future.  2,000kg/hectare headed to top the blockage stocks up to their maximum limit this year and the balance of the juice went off to become industrial alcohol.  As it was such a prolific harvest, the producers could afford to be highly selective - hence why so many grapes were left for the birds.  Interestingly, it was mainly black grapes that I spotted on the vines across the region.

What does it mean for us as consumers?  That the future is steady and assured I suspect.  There is plenty of good quality stock available and great stuff in the pipeline from the harvest of 2009.  The easing of demand has taken the relentless growth pressure out of champagne generally and has caused producers to focus again on quality.  Hopefully there will also be some fairness on price to act as a sort of demand stimulus, particularly while the £/€ equation is so horrid.

There will be a glut of supermarket cut price champagne offers in the UK this year as we run up to Christmas.  In fact, this has been the pattern for the past few years so no change there.  These headline grabbers are highly restricted offers and are being subsidised by the supermarkets so they can secure our grocery purchases at the same time.  Scary fact: Tesco handles 1 in every 4 bottles of wine sold in the UK as an “off” sale, according to the Daily Telegraph on Saturday!

For personalised champagne we see no change at all.  The quality of the bubbly is already good and will continue being good.  Demand is strong as we receive more and varied requests from different customers.  Big format bottles have been surprisingly popular with magnums and jeroboams leading the chase.  AND the Christmas rush is on us, somewhat later than usual following the pattern of last year, but nonetheless showing us plenty of challenges to come over the next three weeks.

The Park Lane 2010 plans are for diversification into different markets online - led by our customers and other interested partners.  A beta version of the site will arrive with a more focused range of products and enhanced label creation functionality.  In the background, however, we will still be spinning the exercise wheel as fast as we can to keep our five star service up to speed.  Haven’t we been here before?!

Only 23 online shopping days to go until the big fella is squeezing down your chimney…

Amazing how a dose of the ‘flu (was it really swine flu?) quickly causes the rose tinted specs to fall off and crack - particularly when a household of children also fall victim to different illnesses one by one - and the in-tray gets ever fuller….  I am sure this is the story from all over England at the moment so musn’t grumble, and all that.

And as to leaves?  Well when I visited Epernay at the very end of October, several producers commented on my excellent timing as I was caught in those few days when it was possible to see every colour of leaf on the vineyards.  I agreed how spectacular the whole area looked - like a giant patchwork quilt.   On closer inspection, I was also muddled - why were the browner leaves at the lower levels and the greener ones further up the hills when surely it should be the other way round?

The answer - which does seem like reverse logic - is that the frost hits the valleys first while the vineyards higher up are more protected.   The leaves certainly confirmed this explanation.  Imagine the effect this has all year round on the individual vineyards - whether rain or sun, snow or frost .

So there it is: many factors contribute to the magical terroir and they all go to determining how and why particular grapes develop as they do.  Of course, with champagne the blending process (of grapes and years) is intended to iron out these vagaries, but it still helps to understand all the components of quality.  This is what Herve hopes to achieve with his focus on vineyard quality at Ayala.

Due to medicinal imposition, the enforced break from champagne has been most unwelcome;  bring on that cold weather and soon!

Ayala is an old Champagne House (Maison de Champagne) founded in 1860 that for the last couple of decades had somewhat lost its way.  Neighbouring Bollinger and Raoul Collet in the Grand Cru (pinot noir grape) village of Ay just outside Epernay, potential and history were aplenty;  reputation and direction maybe needed to play catch-up.

All that changed in 2005 when Bollinger bought the business.  Herve came across from Bollinger and brought vision and experience to Ayala.  His brief from M Montgolfier (patron of Bollinger) was not to reproduce Bollinger next door, but rather to do something completely different.  This he has done.

“Zero dosage” (no additional sugar) or “Nature” (natural) is the new hallmark of the house.  In typical non-vintage Brut (dry) champagne, there is up to 15g of sugar per litre added as dosage (special mixture of sugar and reserve wine) to top up the bottle and tweak the style at the end of the production process - when the bottles have been brought up from their aging and second fermentation in the cellars and disgorged (had the seal and yeasty sediment removed).  To go for zero dosage (ie. absolutely no sugar at all) is brave.  Herve believes it brings his champagnes into focus as premium quality wines where the quality and origin of the grape becomes the over-riding and single most important factor in the taste;  the significance of terroir featuring again!

I agree.  Herve is a pioneer;  he has zero dosage non-vintage, vintage and rose.  His champagne are scrummy, elegant and very well made but they are quite distinct.  More of a considered glass than a straightforward quaff.  I believe these are champagnes for the real connoisseur.

The principal benefit to Bolllinger for buying Ayala, I suspect, is quality.  Bollinger have a fabulous reputation with the best winegrowers in the region across all the Premier and Grand Cru villages.  To save reneging on grape purchase contracts from these super vineyards, Bollinger can divert any surplus grapes across to Ayala so that Herve & Co have the very best ingredients to work with - hence the zero dosage policy.

Herve believes it will take a generation to revive the reputation of Ayala.  In the meantime, his champagnes are effectively subsidised in price while the brand and style become established in the UK.  If you can, buy some!  My favourite was the Vintage 2000 (Perle d’Ayala) and it was really very good - with a cheeky 7.5g of sugar at dosage just to polish up the roundness.

We don’t sell Herve’s champagne (should we?) but I know a man who does if you are interested…  Sorry for all the technical speak but I hope you can navigate through.  Any questions, please ask!

Ayala produce only 700,000 bottles across all their cuvees in a typical year and purchase 95% of their grapes from winegrowers, with a dominance towards Premier and Grand Cru quality.

Please could everyone keep an eye out for any spottings of the Bovril outdoors revival advert featuring our beastie - and add the details as a comment to this post.   PLEASE and free bottle of champagne for the most unusual spot!

Many thanks.

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