THE TITANIC sailed on its star-crossed maiden voyage without a proper Champagne christening.

Phil Ramey, a Los Angeles-based photographer and collector of aged Champagnes, has watched the value of his cellar skyrocket. “Five years ago, a magnum of 1961 Krug would have sold for around $1,800,” he says. “Now you’d pay well over $3,000 for a bottle with known provenance, that is, if you could even find it.”

Consensus among the vast majority of admirers is that Krug, with its round, full, yeasty flavor, represents the pinnacle of Champagne. “It is a Champagne that tells you, ‘I am here,’” says the not-at-all-biased Remi Krug, the fifth generation scion of his family’s Reims, France-based house. “It is the definition of complex.” Krug’s nonvintage bubbly is the most expensive nonvintage Champagne on the market, retailing for about $110 per bottle. Its vintage Champagnes start at $195, a relative bargain for the outstanding quality.

The Champagne region of France is blessed with nearly 4,000 sparkling wine producers—most of them infinitesimally small—yet fewer than 100 Champagne brands are imported into the United States. Of those familiar on our shores, just 16 are designated as Grande Marque houses. The powerhouse companies of the Grande Marque–Perrier Jouët, Moët & Chandon, Bollinger and Veuve Clicquot among them–dominate the market in this country because of their size, collectively exporting several million cases each year. The tragedy is that more than 90 percent of Champagne’s annual export to the United States is in nonvintage cuvées, the inexpensive blends of inferior years. Cellar-worthy Champagne is bottled with a vintage-dated label. The trick to building a valuable collection lies in selecting the bottlings that Champagne enthusiasts most covet. “Champagne gets more fascinating, more complex as it ages,” says Serena Sutcliffe, head of Sotheby’s wine department. “At auction, we occasionally see prices go mad when certain older vintages of Krug, Dom Pérignon or Bollinger come up.”

Reverential Renderings
Moët & Chandon’s Dom Pérignon, a virtuoso balance of chardonnay and pinot noir grapes, is a lighter, less oxidized Champagne than Krug, with subtle flavors of brioche and smoke. Dom Pérignon’s chief wine maker, Richard Geoffroy, describes his house’s style as “lacy, elegant, delicate and feminine.” He points to the 1973 vintage, with its ethereal, almost gossamer mouth-feel, as one of the most illustrative, “the most Dom Pérignon-like” of the past century.

Although our cellars will benefit from any vintage of Dom Pérignon, connoisseurs are especially reverent about the house’s oenotheque bottlings. Recently disgorged, these Champagnes have been sitting on the lees—that is, macerating with the yeast—under perfect climactic conditions in Moët & Chandon’s deep, chalky cellars in Epernay for a number of years. Geoffroy releases his wines only when he is sure they are ready, so the best way to find out about new releases is to make friends with the local wine shop proprietor.

Dom Pérignon’s 1990 and 1976 vintages are the latest in the oenotheque program to be released. Having sat on the lees for 28 years, the 1976 cuvée, about $400 retail, is especially lush and opulent, owing in part to a near drought in the Champagne region that year. The 1990 oenotheque, about $300, exudes aromas of toast and smoke, and a flinty mineral taste. Other spectacular releases include the 1973 and 1985 vintages, both of which sold out quickly. Anyone with the good fortune to spy one of these at retail or auction should grab it. Both vintages exude a spiritual elegance, embodying the very essence of truly fine Champagne.

Bollinger has been producing late disgorged Champagnes under the Bollinger RD (recently disgorged) label for over a dozen years. Its current 1990 release has a resplendent nose of brioche and a round, voluminous yeasty flavor. “RD is for true lovers of Champagne,” says Bollinger’s President Ghislain de Montgolfier, a descendant of the founder. To be sure, a growing number of prestige houses are releasing late disgorged bottlings to satisfy an increasingly sophisticated consumer. Taittinger’s Comte de Champagne, a Blanc de Blanc comprised of chardonnay grapes, is selling a recently disgorged 1995, about $130, with a deep undertone of baked bread and a subtle acidity.

Blanc de Blanc aside, some devotees,  prefer the complexity, spice and fragrant nose that accompany the addition of pinot noir to the cuvée, as found in Dom Pérignon and Dom Pérignon rosé, Krug vintage and rosé sparklers, Bollinger, Charles Heidseik and Veuve Clicquot rosé, all of which appreciate at about the same level as the Blanc de Blancs.

As an investment, Remi Krug has a tip for all of us. He covets the astounding 1961 vintage and laments that his cellar is dry of that heavenly year. “My ’61 was stunning, and it’s all gone,” he says. “If I want to ever drink it again, I’ll have to buy it at auction.” Perhaps someone among us is willing to part with an irreplaceable treasure and put Sotheby’s on speed dial. 

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