Wine Lister Leagues 2021: New Year’s Eve Champagne MUST BUYs

22 Champagnes for 2022

Considering the latest industry insights shared in our annual end of year study, Wine Lister explores an eclectic range of Champagne MUST BUYs worth celebrating. With an initial selection made by our proprietary recommendation algorithm, based on quality and value within the category, we have singled out some top picks to pop open as we ring in 2022.

Wine Lister Leagues 2021: New Year’s Eve Champagne MUST BUYs (p. 17)

With demand for Champagne reaching record heights this year, Wine Lister’s latest Leagues explore a selection of top bottles to take you into 2022, featuring a variety of styles and price points across four categories: Major Marques, Connoisseur’s Collection, Varietal Vins, and Captivating Cuvées.

What Champagne should I buy?

Major Marques

 A selection of Champagne’s strongest brands, the list of Major Marques features Krug’s Grande Cuvée and Clos de Mesnil alongside Louis Roederer’s Cristal, Perrier-Jouët’s Belle Epoque, and Dom Pérignon’s P2. The latter is considered a top Investment Staple, receiving recognition from the global fine wine market as a relatively stable and liquid option (discover our list of 2021 Investment Staples on p. 16).

Connoisseur’s Collection

Favourites among the trade and fine wine lovers alike, these insider icons include Philipponnat’s Clos des Goisses, Pol Roger’s Sir Winston Churchill, Salon Le Mesnil, and Taittinger’s Comtes de Champagne. Bollinger is featured twice in the line-up with its Grande Année and R.D. cuvées; with a distinguished history dating back to 1829, the estate has the only two vineyards in Champagne to remain phylloxera-free throughout the late 19th-century epidemic.

Varietal Vins

Our selection of Blanc de Blancs worth seeking out include Agrapart et Fils Minéral Extra-Brut, Pierre Gimonnet et Fils Fleuron Brut, and Charles Heidsick’s Blanc des Millénaires. Produced only in exceptional years, there have been four vintages of Blanc des Millénaires released since its inaugural 1983 vintage, with the cuvée spending a minimum of fifteen years maturing in the heart of Charles Heidsieck’s 2000-year-old underground chalk cellars (a UNESCO world heritage site) before release.

Made exclusively from Pinot Noir, Jacques Selosse’s La Cote Faro and Paul Bara’s Comtesse Marie de France also feature in the MUST BUY selection. A seventh-generation family business, Champagne Paul Bara is one of the few grower producers in Bouzy – a village widely regarded as amongst Champagne’s top sites for the production of Pinot Noir.

Captivating Cuvées

Sure to impress during the festive season, our list of Captivating Cuvées includes key grower producers Bruno Paillard, Bérêche et Fils, Vilmart et Cie, and Egly-Ouriet, whose featured wines each offer relative value within the selection of Champagne MUST BUYs. Henriot’s Cuvée des Enchanteleurs and Billecart-Salmon’s Cuvée Elisabeth Salmon complete the list – the latter being the only rosé Champagne featured, comprising a blend of around 50% Chardonnay and 50% Pinot Noir, of which 10% is vinified as red wine and incorporated into the final blend.

For further analysis on quality consistency, increased popularity, and a list of 2021s most compelling wines, download the Winer Lister Leagues 2021 here. 


Ornellaia 2018 – La Grazia

Last week, Wine Lister joined members of the fine wine trade and press, gathered behind their screens, for the unveiling of Ornellaia’s annual Vendemmia d’Artista collaboration. With each new vintage release, the Ornellaia team chooses a word to characterise the latest growing season and its resulting wine, and selects an artist to bring the word to life on limited-edition labels of the Ornellaia bottle.

Marking the winery’s 13th edition of Vendemmia d’Artista, the 2018 vintage has been coined “La Grazia” – Grace. Estate Director, Axel Heinz, explains that the choice of name is due to 2018 being “a wine that has no hard edges”, and one “all about symmetry, proportion…a graceful expression of Ornellaia”.

Indeed, the higher proportion of Merlot than Cabernet Sauvignon in the latest vintage blend – an exception for the estate – has produced what we found to be a soft and silky wine with a lively perfume and elegant, precise fruit. Ornellaia’s CEO, Giovanni Geddes da Filicaja, notes that the wine really came together “at the time of blending”. He adds, “all the pieces were good, but once we put them all together, it became a really gracious wine”.

That the wine should be so-named came as somewhat of a surprise to Heinz. He reveals that “it was really after the year of ageing and when we sat down in the blending room, that the wine revealed itself to us”. He describes the vintage as “one not without challenges”, expanding thus: “usually [we have] a relatively dry Mediterranean climate. In 2018 we had Mediterranean sun but at the same time enough rainfall to slow the ripening down, and create a wine that is all about balance”.

Belgian artist, Jan Fabre, was chosen to bring La Grazia to life, and limited-edition bottles in various formats will feature his work, as shown in the image below.

Photo: courtesy of Ornellaia winery – featuring sculpture and drawings by Jan Fabre.

Ornellaia’s art curator, Bartolomeo Pietromarchi, explains the artistic concept as “a way to express balance between beauty and taste”, as well as to “explore the relationship between the senses”. Fabre has sculpted three works from precious red coral, which adorn Salmanazars due for auction in September; “A Candle of Mercy”, “The Crown of Kindness” and “The Heart of Virtue”.

Further bottles feature drawings that bring out the texture of these sculptures – indeed a limited number of 12-bottle cases of Ornellaia 2018 will each contain one bottle with Fabre’s crown label design.

The 111 limited-edition, large-format bottles will be auctioned through Sotheby’s in September 2021, and all proceeds will go towards Ornellaia’s ongoing support of the Mind’s Eye project at the Guggenheim museum.