A bestseller for over 30 years –
The unprecedented success of ‘Crémant de Luxembourg’
Crémant is on everyone’s lips…On Letzshop, numerous winegrowers offer their various Crémant cuvées alongside their still wines. There are 200 different references for Letzshop customers to choose from!
But what is a Luxembourg Crémant? We take you on a journey back in time to 15 November 1991: on that Friday, the Crémant was officially introduced. It was the beginning of a real success story: the new Luxembourg sparkling wine was an instant success and was to become the most important product for the winegrowers on the Luxembourg Moselle.
All beginnings are difficult
At the beginning of the year, on 4 January 1991, the Grand Ducal regulations had been published, giving the green light for the production of ‘Crémant de Luxembourg’. With the ‘Marque nationale des vins mousseux’, an important measure had already been taken three years earlier, because until then there had been no state control at all for sparkling wines produced in Luxembourg – unlike for still wines, for which there had long been a set of regulations.
Viewed soberly, the introduction of the ‘Crémant de Luxembourg’ was due to an emergency situation. Like their colleagues in other wine regions outside Champagne, Luxembourg’s winegrowers had marketed their sparkling wines for decades with the addition ‘méthode champenoise’.
Technically, this designation is still correct today, because ‘méthode champenoise’ refers to nothing else than the procedure of fermentation in the bottle (‘seconde fermentation en bouteille’), which was invented or discovered and further developed in Champagne in the 17th century.
From the ‘méthode champenoise’ to Crémant
But at the end of the 1980s, after a long process, the wine houses in Champagne managed to get the designation ‘méthode champenoise’ protected throughout the EC and only the ‘champagne’ actually produced there could call itself that. The Luxembourg winegrowers therefore had to find an alternative until the Brussels Directive came into force (1994), the sooner the better. ‘Crémant’, which had already been introduced in various French wine-growing regions, offered an attractive option with quite strict, quality-oriented specifications.
Crémant came just at the right time, because the Luxembourg wine industry was in a phase of change and departure at the beginning of the 1990s anyway. The market for still wines had become more difficult, so that after the land consolidation in the vineyards of many villages, new ways had to be found to utilise and market the grapes of the intensively cultivated Burgundy varieties Auxerrois and Pinot Blanc. Both varieties have the advantage that they are excellently suited for the production of sparkling wines, and in the assemblage with other varieties such as Riesling, complex cuvées can be created.
A great success
In addition to the cooperative winery Vinsmoselle (today: Domaines Vinsmoselle), which offered a Cuvée Demi-Sec as well as Crémants made from Riesling, Elbling, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Noir alongside its Crémant POLL-FABAIRE Brut, several other companies (Kox-Risch – today: L&R Kox -, Mathes and Desom) immediately jumped on the Crémant bandwagon. With resounding success: before Christmas 1991, practically all the cuvées were sold out, the Crémant had become a victim of its own success.
The success of the new product was a tribute to the quality of the new sparkling wine, but without Vinsmoselle’s groundbreaking, literally refreshing marketing campaign, the train would not have taken off so quickly. The interest in the new Luxembourg quality sparkling wine was immense, not least thanks to the unprecedented advertising: ‘E Crémant, wann ech glift!’.
In 1991, the year of its birth, exactly 227,850 bottles were produced; today, almost three million bottles of Crémant are put on the market every year.
In the course of time, more and more businesses have joined the Crémant production, and nowadays hardly any business can avoid offering Crémant.
‘AOP Crémant de Luxembourg’
Crémant production is subject to strict criteria. For the winegrowers, Crémant production was new territory in 1991, a small revolution. For they were only allowed to use grapes harvested in the almost 1,300 square kilometre area between Schengen and Wasserbillig – because unlike ‘vins mousseux’, the use of grapes from abroad is not permitted.
The protected term ‘AOP Crémant de Luxembourg’ on the label and on the cork guarantees that it is a Luxembourg Crémant.
The demand for Crémants is constantly high. Some wineries are in the process of enlarging their cellars to accommodate the cuvées in sufficient quantities. And many have long since started to put together not just one, but several cuvées. Over time, many Crémants based on Chardonnay and Pinot Noir were created in this way, genuine champagne cuvées with only these two varieties, or in assemblages with classic Moselle grape varieties.
A rich assortment
The range of crémant on offer is now very extensive, from traditional ‘Crémants Brut’ to vintage cuvées and noble drops in higher price categories. For some years now, more and more Crémants have been offered with very little or no added liqueur, these are cuvées called ‘Extra Brut’, ‘Zéro dosage’ or ‘Brut Nature’. A niche, but these ultra-dry Crémants, which are left on their lees for a long time before being disgorged, go down very well with consumers who prefer tart wines and similarly dry champagnes with biscuity notes. Last but not least, the best Luxembourg Crémants, be they bone dry, normal ‘brut’ or even fine rosés, have long been able to compete unabashedly with products from Reims, Aÿ or Epernay. This is something we see time and again in blind tastings…
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