A champagne house’s non-vintage expression is said to be the style that it stands or falls on. Piper-Heidsieck’s house quality is at an all-time high. Shedding their 'heavy on the history' approach, Piper a few years ago embraced a more current line via their youthful chef de cave, Emilien Boutillat, 2021's IWC Sparkling Winemaker of the Year, and an enthusiastic proponent of diligent sustainability and responsible production. This has manifested in a noticeable uplift in the standard and consistency of their gold medal and trophy-adorned non-vintage cuvée, firmly instilling it as a reliably high-quality and competitively priced option in the non-vintage champagne market.

So, what is the difference then between Piper-Heidsieck’s Cuvée Brut NV and their Essentiel Cuvée Réserve NV? In a nutshell, the Cuvée Essentiel is exactly the same base as Piper-Heidsieck Brut NV, with one further year on lees aging and less dosage. Piper-Heidsieck Brut NV has 8-10 g/L dosage, whereas the drier in style Essentiel has around 5g/L.

The Essentiel is a project that was started in 2008, born of a customer interest in lower dosage wines and a drier style of champagne. Aging on lees occurs once the second fermentation has occurred in the bottle; the reaction with the dead yeast cells is known as autolysis. Characters such as brioche and toast are autolytic characters. These become more pronounced in the wine the longer it has in contact with the lees.

While technically, every bottle of the Cuvée Brut Non-Vintage could transform into the Essentiel, there is a selection process for the latter involving parts of the cellar where the conditions create uniquely different wines. These are elected to stay in the cellar for longer, receiving the lower dosage and thereby becoming the Essentiel. Piper’s new initiative arrived at a time when Grower champagnes, with their associated transparency, were gaining popularity. Consequently, in these information-hungry times, one can find on the Essentiel’s back label, as on many of the Grower champagnes, all the relevant details of what’s inside the bottle.