Champagne 2020 – beyond the deal

Jeroboams, Elizabeth Street champagne offer

In the second of this three-part report, Tim Hall of Scala Wine does the math(s), after setting the scene yesterday. A look at the likely quality of 2020 champagnes follows tomorrow.

Champagne’s 8,000 kg/ha yield limit for 2020, albeit a big drop, seems simple enough. But the fine print of the byzantine document detailing it needs some digestion to bare its key bones. (One producer described it so me as ‘a gas factory’.) The first point to make is that the 8,000 kg/ha is really 7,000 kg/ha. The strategy at work is to make the amount of champagne made in...