View 2013 Champagne Catalog - Michael Skurnik Wines

Introduction
What is this thing called “Brut?”
One thing it isn’t is drier than it used to be,
despite those news reports that “Brut” would be confined
to 12g.l. or below, instead of the 15g.l. which was formerly
allowed. Well, that is not exactly true; it’s truthy, as Mr.
Colbert would say. Because this fierce new rule permits a
tolerance of 1.5g.l. in either direction. “Nothing’s going
to change,” is what I was told, again and again.
One time I ordered a vintage Blanc de Blancs from
one of the better négociants. It ought to have been good,
and it was. Out of curiosity I left half a glass to go flat.
Tasting it at the end of the meal, I was startled to see how
sweet it was.
The next morning at Pierre Gimonnet I tasted
his N.V. Brut, which had 6 g.l. residual sugar. This was
certainly dry Champagne, correctly called “Brut.” But
a commercial Champagne with 15 g.l. sweetness (the
highest legally permitted, and very often seen across
the big brands), low acidity, neutral character, all of
it disguised by CO 2
, is SWEET wine. It tastes like a
Rheinhessen Kabinett with 30 g.l. residual sugar.
And both of them called “Brut”!
The dosage liqueur is one of two things, either
wine (of varying type) to which cane or beet sugar is
added, or concentrated grape-must. And naturally,
growers’ opinions differ!
Insofar as all the must-concentrate seems to hail
from the Languedoc, I have some doubts. Uneasy is the
mouth which speaks of terroir in one breath and describes
adding Languedoc must-concentrate to Champagne
in the next. Even more uneasy the mouth intoning its
organic credentials while adding chemically-produced
Languedoc must concentrate to his wine instead of the
organic alternative: sugar (organically grown) dissolved in
his own organic wine. What you have to probe to learn is
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