Taste Testing Champagne Palmer's Amazone de Palmer & Co

We last checked in with Champagne Palmer a year ago, where we tasted a selection of their flagship La Reserve, Rose Solera, Blanc de Blancs and Grands Terroirs - which were all incredibly impressive - and yet we were missing their latest cuvee, the Amazone de Palmer & Co! And so we're back today to get that in check!

Now as a matter of quickly recapping the Champagne Palmer story, the cooperative was founded first by 7 growers in 1847 as the Société des Grands Crus de la Champagne in the wake of WWII. The families each owned Grand Cru parcels and yet understood full well that they were better off working together. When it came down to selecting their unified name, they had primarily wanted a name that was easy for anyone to pronounced and thus chose the name "Champagne Palmer". Some have said that it came as a stroke of inspiration gotten from a popular biscuit brand of the time, Huntley & Palmer. Now of course there's that immediate question of whether this ran into any issues given that in Bordeaux there lies another particularly well-known Palmer. As the story goes, Champagne Palmer would have a case of its Champagnes sent over to the Bordeaux chateaux and all was water under the bridge! In any case, one clearly made sparkling wines and the other dry still ones.

Champagne Palmer would in the coming decades grow through its ensuring of great quality, eventually moving from Avize to Reims, with a particular presence in Pinot Noir loving Montagne de Reims. Over time, the cooperative would begin accepting new members, although there is nevertheless quite the waiting list to join, with new members having to at the very least bring into the fold Premier Cru sites. Today, Champagne Palmer sits on some 400 hectares of land - it's one of the largest landowners of the prized Montagne de Reims - made up of over 300 growers. Interestingly, 50% of Palmer's vines are nevertheless Chardonnay (40% Pinot Noir, 10% Meunier), which sits between Verzy-Verzenay and Bouzy-Ambonnay, making them a rarity in the Pinot Noir dominant cru, and is even said to be more deeply mineral yet less chalky, with more body and structure to its fruit, less weightiness, and at the same time more creamy with less citruses and florals. Beyond its stronghold, Palmer also has vines in the Cote de Sezanne, Cote des Bars and Vallee de la Marne, with the ability to source fruit from over 40 villages, giving it the ability to employ rigorous selection. This all has made Champagne Palmer one of the most important cooperatives in Champagne!

Yet that alone doesn't explain why Champagne Palmer has been such a success. Champagne Palmer's secret sauce comes from its extensive use of reserve wines. Unlike other Champagne houses, Palmer extensively uses 30-40% of reserve wines - wines that have been kept and blended together from one vintage to another as a sort of mother stock - for its cuvees, way exceeding the typical 10%. Yet, because there is no fixed formula for what reserve wines have to be - a reserve wine can simply be several recent vintages blended together - it's worth pointing out that Palmer's draws from a more than 30 year long chain of vintages, which is added generously to Champagnes that will go on to age for another 3-4 years on the lees before being released, well beyond the 12 months requirement. Palmer quite uniquely cultivates separate perpetual reserve systems for each of its key components, with the first for 100% Chardonnay, a second for a blend of Pinot Noir and Meunier, and the last for 100% Pinot Noir. This all means that Palmer's Champagnes are composed of extensively aged wines upon release. On top of that, Palmer uses 100% malolactic fermentation (to lean into that creaminess) , with ageing in both barrels and stainless steel - even the liqueur used for dosage is made with wines drawn from its solera!

And so with that said, we circle back to the Amazone de Palmer & Co. The Amazone de Palmer & Co is the crown jewel of the Champagne Palmer stable, and is named after the mythical warrior women of the Amazon rainforests, which it likens to the character of the expression. It is said to be an homage to the potential of reserve wines where 18% of the cuvee comes from its Chardonnay solera, making up a total of 51% Chardonnay (Trepail and Villers-Marmery) and 49% Pinot Noir (Mailly and Verzenay), all of which from 100% Grand and Premier Cru parcels in the Montagne de Reims, from the 2012, 2010 and 2009 harvests. It altogether aged for 8 years on the lees, with a 6g/l dosage, bottled in 2013 and disgorged in 2020.

Let's give this a go!

PS. Thank you to Armand Briffoteau for bringing this over to Singapore - Champagne Palmer is available in Singapore via Teck Huat and Marcos Cellars!

Champagne Review: Champagne Palmer Amazone de Palmer & Co Brut NV

Tasting Notes

Colour: Bright straw-gold.

Aroma: Complex, multilayered and quite creamy, leaning towards a very brioche-led richness that calls out the time spent on the lees. Opening a shade more syrupy rather than zesty, softer and less of a citrus peel-bite than the younger cuvées. Then the baked notes arrive in waves: French toast, fresh brioche, toasted hazelnuts, a lighter run of almond and vanilla. Some warm and evocative banana bread character underneath, topped with cinnamon, nutmeg and coriander seed. Then it’s orchard fruits: soft fresh apricot and slightly bruised apple line with a touch of orange peel and more ripe banana. A thin thread of honey and beeswax through the riper fruit. Through all of this there is a well-calibrated presence of steady citrus brightness that never tips into anything drying. The brioche tone also holds throughout. Light indistinct white florals and a cool note of wet stone.

Taste: Where the younger cuvées feel a little more ethereal, this one offers clear fullness and power. Opens ripe and fleshy, all apricot, nectarine and tinned peaches, texture and mouthfeel is rounded and plush. There is a thread of raciness that sets up a light acidic backbone, though it feels almost fully resolved when held against a base of nuttiness, cream and toast that becomes clearer as the wine warms in the glass. Faint saline, chalky grip shows up by the mid-palate. Aromatic spice and orange peel building slowly behind the cream and minerality.

Finish: Medium-plus length. The richness on the palate is gradually resolved into something cleaner and more clarified. Soft brown-butter warmth, toast, light brioche and cream fading, giving way to bruised apple, then back to yuzu and white peaches. Mineral water, a little residual baking spice and a handful of toasted trail-mix nuts see it out.

My Thoughts

This is a very well matured, very elegant Champagne. It feels like a wine with a much longer story to tell. The nose alone is really multidimensional, while the palate keeps me fully engaged as it keeps unfolding both in the glass and across the palate.

It begins with real weight and ripe, fleshy orchard fruit, then toast and cream take over the mid-palate, before resolving into crystalline citrus and orchard fruit on the finish, carried by the sharper, chalk-driven acidity that is a signature of the Montagne de Reims. All this while staying precise and clear-edged.

You can see why they named this cuveé after the mythical race of warrior women: it has both power and elegance in the same glass. There’s a masterful integration of richness and the freshness, and it works both as something to quietly savour alone or as a Champagne that holds up to a range of dishes from light to rich.

@CharsiuCharlie