Douwe of Vindeux on Artisanal Champagne

Hi, Jeroen here from VinoVonk and welcome to a new episode of Sparks by VinoVonk. The series where I take you into fine wines, innovative drinks, spirits, you name it. And today I have a nice guest, Douwe from Vindeux.nl. And Vindeux is a service for champagnes. Anyway, I don’t know the details, except that they have very beautiful bottles.

I am holding up a very nice bottle right now that they sent me from Claude Michel. Cuvée Flore. Well, my pronunciation, you can hear it, I really need to work on that. But Douwe, welcome to the show. Yes, thank you Jeroen.

The pronunciation is fine, really. I think it’s perfectly acceptable. But indeed, we sent the bottle just like we do for all our subscribers. We have a subscription system for champagne. And every month we send out new producers who aren’t on the Dutch market yet.

And then our subscribers get our first introduction. That is interesting. And Vindeux, well, wine I know wine, -deux, do you send two wines then, or are there two of you, or how does that work? Are there any subscription types available yet? Or one or two?

Two indeed? And there are two of us too. I do it together with my girlfriend Ellen. So that is why there are just the two of us. And we started in 2022.

So if you search a bit using French wordplay, you end up with vingt-deux. Yes, fantastic. So you started a subscription service for champagne together with your girlfriend. But yes, you see that more often. Subscription services, subscription services, especially with wine and champagne.

Why did you start it? We were in the Champagne region once, and when you see how many producers there are, it can really take your breath away. You can really feel a bit overwhelmed by how many there are. In some villages alone, there are already 40 or 50. If you add it all up, I think there are easily 1,500 producers.

We think we can pick out some nice producers there and create a kind of surprise effect. We could stick to the standard business model with a few houses we have and always sell. But we thought it would be fun to actually embark on a sort of journey of discovery through the Champagne region and launch a new producer every month. And actually, specifically focused on champagne. Because we have the idea that when you have a wine tasting box, it can contain wines that differ quite a bit in taste profile and can really surprise you.

If you’re in the mood for a light Pinot Noir, you end up with a heavy Mendoza in your package. Which isn’t actually on it. With champagne, that difference is more nuanced. You always know you can get high-quality wine. There are many makers who put their own stamp on how they make the wine.

So, for us, there is actually plenty to discover. What a nice initiative. And before we open this beautiful bottle, how did you actually come up with the idea to do this, and that you’re saying, well, how do you even get to the producers? Yes, you could say you get in the car and we drive there. Yes, that is ultimately how it goes, but we did quite thorough desk research beforehand, because we always select producers who have something special.

So, those who still perform a specific part of the production process by hand—for example, the disgorgement by hand, or the remuage by hand—or who have a special family story. And that is preceded by quite extensive desk research, so that we can also… I wouldn’t say educate, but at least take our subscribers along on the journey regarding the differences in the production process and what that means for the taste. Interesting, yes. Speaking of education, you mention disgorgement, you mention remuage.

Could you explain very briefly, in the form of a short educational course, what is the advantage of doing this by hand and what does it actually entail? There isn’t really an advantage to doing it by hand, except that you are preserving a very beautiful craft. During remuage, the bottles lie upside down in a pupitre, a wine rack. This is tilted increasingly, causing the yeast sediment to sink towards the neck of the bottle. In the past, they did all of this by hand.

Nowadays, there are large machines for that: gyropalettes. So you see a bit of a change regarding those kinds of old crafts where you do it by hand; that is disappearing. But some producers actually find it beautiful to hold on to that. And they say, “Yes, I learned it in school back in the day. I don’t get it in school anymore, but I just want to keep doing it in my production.” Yes, that is simply very beautiful.

The same applies to disgorgement, the moment the yeast sediment from the second fermentation is removed from the bottle. Nowadays, that is done using ice baths, where it freezes at the very top and flies out automatically. We have visited producers who do that by hand for 12,000 bottles a year. Whether it really affects the taste, I don’t know; I don’t think so. But it is just very beautiful to see, to see such a craft still in action.

That sounds really wonderful. I can also imagine that not all small producers might have the money and space for such a machine. But a gyropalette just takes up a lot more space. I always just call it two wooden boards that the bottles sit on. That’s true.

Although there are many producers we visit who do have a gyropalette, mind you. There are producers among us who make roughly between 8,000 and 20,000 bottles. And usually, they do have their own gyropalette. Even if there is only one, that simply saves a huge amount of work. And have you ever been able to taste wines that have been worked on by hand and those that have been treated by machine?

Yes, certainly. In our… I’m trying to remember which month that was. I think November of last year. We had a producer who does everything by hand.

And his sister handles part of another brand. She handles those with the machine. But I don’t really notice the difference. We mainly just find it really nice to see how they still do it by hand. And also the choices they have, conscious choices the producers make, in how they set up a business process.

Yes, and there are so many knobs they can turn. That starts in the vineyard, but in the cellars too. And that means that every month you can tell something or mention something in the flyer we send along about what makes those producers so special. That is indeed super cool; you can basically bring the cellar to the people, because you can tell the whole story. Yes, actually, you always have to go and see it for yourself.

So we also sometimes share tips on Instagram about the producers we’ve visited. Go pay them a visit. There are business cards of ours lying around there too. So then we get reactions from those producers. We’ve had people from the Netherlands come by again.

Yes, that’s really nice. That’s pretty cool. Then people—in my view, people have a subscription, they get a bottle. Then they share on Instagram, like, well look, we’re here now and this is it. So you really show, wow, this is where it’s happening, this is where it comes from.

And you know where it is. Well, then you go on vacation or you happen to be driving in the neighborhood, you go there, and then you visit. You ended up there via Vindeux. And then the circle is complete again. Wonderful.

And we wish we had an endless supply of all the producers we work with lying around at home. But that isn’t always the case. So we pick a few that we think are doing really well. They are doing well, and we get good reactions to them. And sometimes we have to make quite tough choices in that regard.

So we actually think it’s really great when our subscribers and people who order from our webshop take a trip themselves after they’ve tasted this champagne at our place. It could be that, for example, this beautiful champagne you send, you fall in love with it, and then it’s all gone. That is, of course, a nice concept. It’s not like you can buy something and say, “Today I’ll buy this, then I’ll buy that.” No, it is an experience. If you want more of an experience, you just have to go there.

Or you could ask us to bring it along next time. We wouldn’t be the stingiest people to do that, of course. But the fact is, with those subscriptions, as a subscriber you are guaranteed to be the first to get this. And usually we do have a few bottles left over that go into the webshop. But not always.

Super cool. And can you tell me something about this wine? Yes, certainly. The producer’s name is Claude Michel. The house is now run by his daughter and her husband.

So that’s two wine families coming together. So, merging the vineyards as well. He has been producing under his own name since… Sometime in the 70s, I think 73. But only since 2010 under the leadership of the…

His daughter. That is what they are too: Récoltant-Manipulant and also completely independent. They really do everything entirely themselves. They are located in Boursault. So, slightly to the left of Épernay or to the west of Épernay in the Vallée de la Marne.

So they really have a mega beautiful view when you’re there. And when the clouds hang low over the Marne, then you look right over the clouds. You do have to go up a bit, climb a bit. But it makes for very beautiful wines. And this wine, this is a blend of 25% Pinot Meunier, 30% Chardonnay, and 45% Pinot Noir.

Yes. And there is a mistake on the bottle. Okay, you saw that then, didn’t you? But we found that out at the producer’s. It says on the back that it aged for 450 months in the cellars.

But I said yes… I would find that very nice, but I don’t think so. So it aged for 4 or 5 years after all. I was sitting on the lookout too, I thought, well, that was one of my questions. I can’t imagine that you 450 months, that’s just a few years, it’s just really very long.

But four and a half years is still very long. Certainly, that is a good period. They also have another brand where they age a lot in oak barrels. So they are used to letting champagne age longer. According to them, that works well to bring out the wines they make.

We need those for a bit of time. And do they let their wines age for a long time after disgorgement, or is it disgorgement, shipping, and drinking? This one was with the new labels. I think these are from somewhere near the end. We picked this up in late January.

I think these were put on with the labels in November. So that is about two months apart. So that isn’t very long. But that does vary from producer to producer and also from importer to importer. Some say that the moment you do disgorgement—I have heard a winemaker say this before—it is, as it were—you can compare this to a human being—that you amputate an arm and then it takes a very long time to recover.

And that is the same with wine. And there are producers who prefer to let it recover for another year or two after disgorgement. Yes, we do come across those too, you know. I actually do trust Cyrille and Laurence; they have those products on the basis that they are making a good choice here. You don’t select based on that, but because you have good personal contact, you know: okay, this is good.

You taste the bottles too, of course. Yes, so we taste the bottles, and quite often we come across wineries where we think: this isn’t quite right. Or they can’t quite convey the story. So we do take a few bottles home to taste, but we don’t actually do it. We do it based on the fact that we are there and taste it once at home as well, and then we make the choice: is this quality good enough?

A friend of ours is an oenologist, so she helps us with that selection. And that just works pretty well for us. Super cool. Shall we go and taste this one? Yes, let’s indeed…

Not 450 months, but 4.5 years… Yes, that’s right. The highest dosage share of the classic grapes is Pinot Noir. 6-6.5 grams per liter. So it is a brut.

If you look at the mousse as well, it is a very fine and elegant mousse. And of course , the label says nothing but… flowers. I’m going to show you. Cuvée Flore, flowers, mostly poppies I think.

You encounter that again on the nose, but anyway, I might be getting ahead of myself a bit. You say it’s mainly Meunier, but on the back it says 45% Pinot Noir. I said 45% Pinot Noir. That’s correct. Superb mousse.

Let me show you closer. You might want to say it smells very floral, but that’s a bit cliché. Yes, you do smell white fruit, so a bit peachy. Because there’s also a lot of toast and bread dough in it. It did sit in the cellars for a while, of course.

Yes. And also just a bit of peach, strawberries, a bit of flower, grapefruit, really a very broad palette of different kinds of fruit, but also a lot of flowers. Really a kind of big bouquet of flowers that you smell. Yes, that is the beauty of a blend like this here, so a champagne with multiple types of grapes in it, that each grape can actually show its character for a moment. When you smell and when you taste, yes, that is top-notch.

I also detect a lot of pear. I think it comes from the Meunier. It could also be Chardonnay that has been aged for a while. And honey, that is really very special. It is also quite a touch dark.

It is not very light. No, it is a bit of a light golden glow. Very beautiful. Well, cheers Santé! Yes, exactly.

Then a bit of smokiness is released as well. We probably had something from wood too. This one, no, I think it was purely the aging in the bottle. This one wasn’t aged in wood. It could have been from the yeasts or…

Super beautiful and also nice and crisp, nicely acidic, but not too much. And it also has a certain elegance and is very round. And everything you smell, you taste again. Super beautiful balance. That aftertaste just keeps coming and it develops too.

It keeps coming, and so that one is coming too—I can just feel it a bit now—those acids are coming through a bit more. It is just very well balanced, and actually everything you smell, you taste it back too. Yeah, this is super cool. Yes, I understand why you thought, “Well, we really have to put this in the subscription.” Yes, it was actually very difficult for us to make every choice because they had so many good champagnes. So it was quite hard to choose what to do then.

But we are satisfied with this one, yes. So they make even more champagnes that are also very tasty, so maybe they will be included in the subscription someday. That could happen. Yes, as I said, there are a huge number of producers, of course. So do you go back to the same producer or him?

But this would be a very good candidate for a bottle that we have in the webshop as standard. Yes. Super cool. Then I do wonder, with such a subscription, is that a fixed amount per month or do you pay per purchase? How does it work?

You can cancel it monthly. You sign up for it and then you pay 38.95 for one bottle. And off the top of my head, 65.95 for two bottles. I need to do the math again though. And then you can choose how long you want to remain a member.

You can cancel monthly, so the moment you think, “I’m going on vacation” or “it’s not convenient right now,” you can pause it. There are also a lot of people who give it as a gift to their parents, for example, when they have been married for a certain number of years, or to people who have reached a certain age. And then they give the subscription for three months, for instance. So they give it as a gift for three months, and we get a lot of good reactions to that too. That is really a super nice gift, because when it’s your birthday you can say, “Here is the gift, but I’m getting this.” And then people say, “Well, that’s super nice.” And if you order two bottles, do you get two identical ones or two different ones?

No, you get two different ones. With Claude Michel from last month, you got this one and a Brut Nature. No added sugar, so 0 grams added per liter. Even tighter, also stored in the cellars a bit longer. So if you have two bottles, you pay a little more, but relatively speaking, perhaps less.

Then you always get something special with it. Super cool, and you get a little story along with it via email and on Instagram, and of course, a piece inside the box as well. A flyer with photos and info about the winery and the champagne itself. We share snippets of that on our Insta too. And we always do tastings on our Insta as well, because we think it’s important that champagne isn’t just for looking at on the wine rack, but primarily for tasting and drinking.

Yes, the intention isn’t for people to take out a subscription just to fill up their cellar, but that is the idea: you buy it, and you’re going to drink it within that month. You’re going to enjoy it. You can be very strict about whether you only want to do it for parties, or in principle, you can pick a good moment at any time to pop open a bottle of champagne. Yes, that is a good point. Champagne is always an option.

Whether you’re in a good mood or not, as they always say. And if you look at the future—because this is of course a very nice model—but if you take a look into the future, where do you think it is heading? Or do you have anything new to share? We are very pleased with this so far. So we are going to further develop those subscriptions with more types of subscriptions.

We want that too; you occasionally have a real drop moment with clothing brands, for example. Like, okay, we are going to develop this moment a bit more. And we have been running on our current site for a year and a half now. So we are going to tackle that soon as well. So that it becomes even fresher and more accessible to help people choose what kind of subscription suits me or what bottles I want to reorder.

And we are very proud of it. There is also a restaurant in Amsterdam that has a rotating champagne on the menu. So that seems great to expand on a bit more. That there are more restaurants that say, “This month we have this champagne in a bottle.” We can take care of that really well too. Because yes, we launch a new bottle and a new producer every month.

So those are a few of our ambitions, and I think that would be nice to pursue further. Super cool, yeah, it’s three bottles every month if I understand correctly. Yes, that’s possible. It’s one or two bottles, but basically two new bottles on the Dutch market. Yeah, super cool.

And which restaurant in Amsterdam is that? That’s Barboes, on Wibautstraat. Yeah, very good. I’m curious. Yeah, it’s obviously a surprise, like, well, you know, if you don’t have the subscription, you say, gosh, I don’t know which one it is.

But imagine you do have the subscription, and you think, well, this is such a delicious champagne. What will they pair with it? And then you go there thinking, I know that one. But then you get the food with it. Then it becomes a completely different experience.

Right. Right. Yeah. Cool, and those drops are pretty cool too, because then you have something new that doesn’t make it into the subscription because it might be too expensive or it’s just a little different, it just doesn’t quite fit in, and you have 200 subscribers but right now you only have 100 bottles, yeah yeah super cool . That’s right.

There is enough potential for us to grow. And there are a lot of other champagne companies that are doing well too. I think there is sufficient market for that. And yes, we do it our way. Super cool to hear.

And if people want more information, of course the links are in the show notes and things like that, but if people think, “Yeah, I want to hear it,” where can they go? I would go to our Instagram first. At least all the champagnes we’ve launched in the past few months are there. And also lots of photos of what we’re doing when we go out to visit the producers. And of course to our site.

I’ll do that again sometime in mid-April, because by then it will be fully updated. And then the bottles from January, February, and March will be back on there as well. So then, yes, maybe, but I don’t know if that’s it yet, but maybe there will still be a few of these bottles available. Yes. Check it out on vindeux.nl.

Everything is in the show notes. Douwe, thank you very much for your time and thank you very much for sending this bottle. A written article will also appear on vinovonk.nl soon. I would say cheers and until next time. Until next time, santé!