The Perpetual Blend: Champagne’s Solera System

(Terroirist) - For millennia, winemakers have been utilizing a unique system of maturation for Sherry, the famous fortified wine of the Jerez region of Spain. Called the solera system, the process involves removing wine for release from the last of a series of barrels that contains a blend of every vintage since the solera was started. The void in those barrels is then filled with wine from another series of barrels, and so on, until there is room in the youngest series of barrels. The wine from the most recent vintage is added to those barrels.

The solera system is a way of ensuring consistency — the wine that is finally taken out of the last series of barrels should be of the same style and quality every time. In addition, as new wine is added to the system, it takes on the characteristics of the older wine with which it becomes blended. Consequently, the world’s greatest Sherries are complex and high quality year after year.

There’s another wine region in the world where the goal is consistently excellent wine with every release: Champagne. Can Champagne utilize the solera system for its non-vintage cuvées? It turns out that some producers do, in certain ways, but the practice is far from widespread.

The perpetual blending system is a method of storing the reserve wines of a Champagne house in a single cuvée, usually only one large barrel or tank. After each harvest is complete, the wine is added to the blend, and every time the producer is ready to release a new batch of non-vintage Champagne, he removes what he needs. Over time, the cuvée becomes increasingly complex — the fresh wines of the latest vintage taking on the mature qualities of those that came before it.