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Open a bottle from an independent grower and taste it alongside Sip’s notes. In this edition, subscribers explored how Champagne can express the character of a single vineyard.

Other selections took us into reserve wines, Chardonnay and the different ways growers make rosé. When this article first appeared in March 2021, Peter Crawford was part of the Sip team. Here’s an extract from the tasting notes, ‘Salon, Krug & the rise of the single parcel’.

…from the 17th Century onwards Champagne defined itself by the blend, with winemakers working with a number of different grape varieties from across the region (many of which are almost extinct now) to create the best blend that exemplified their style. It wasn’t until the 20th Century, however, that improved horticultural and viticulture techniques allowed winemakers to focus their attention on a specific village that a wine or Maison was from; notably when ‘Salon’ was launched in 1911 and production was focussed on a single vineyard owned by the founder, along with 19 parcels from the same village, Mesnil sur Oger. This laid the foundations for the trend of small parcel selection and the associated benefits of vintage and terroir. It wasn’t until the 1970s, though, that the single parcel concept really took off, when the owner of one of those parcels sold off the land to another maison, which came to prominence under the name Krug Clos du Mesnil. In the decades that followed, the expression of the single vineyard grew in popularity and in just the last ten years the trend has exploded, with ever more styles and varieties of Champagne available.

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For your own table, explore Sip’s UK Champagne subscriptions, from £50 a month. For someone else, a prepaid Champagne gift subscription starts at £150 for three monthly deliveries of one bottle, with tasting notes for each selection.