Still buying Veuve Clicquot? These champagnes beat it in a taste test

It may be the most-recognizable Champagne in the world. But is it the best?

Veuve Clicquot Brut Champagne ($55)—aka Yellow Label—is as ubiquitous as it is iconic. It’s the Champagne everyone knows, thanks to that yellow label (which looks orange to me, but never mind). Some see it as the “safe choice” to give as a gift or bring to a party, on account of its fame. Others scorn it as strictly commercial stuff.

Recently, it occurred to me I hadn’t actually tasted Veuve Clicquot in a very long time. And I wondered: Is it really worth the price?

Clearly a taste test was needed: Veuve Clicquot vs. less-famous Champagnes in the same price range. How would this Champagne stack up, judging strictly by what’s in the glass, and leaving out all the marketing hype? I asked a group of five friends, all Champagne drinkers, to join my tasting.

A Retailer’s Take

First I asked retailers whose taste I trust to name Champagnes they recommend as alternatives to Veuve. All were game to offer recommendations, save for one. Valerie Pimpinelli, wine buyer and general manager of Flatiron Wines & Spirits in New York, said that although she loves Champagnes made by small growers, “for a lot of people Veuve is the only option.” She always stocks it. “Too many customers would walk out if we didn’t have it available,” she said.

Gerald Weisl, proprietor of Weimax Wines & Spirits in Burlingame, Calif., doesn’t seem overly worried about alienating Veuve Clicquot customers. He sent me a long list of Champagnes he recommends in lieu of Veuve as well as a photo of the sign he placed over bottles of Veuve Clicquot on his store shelves. It read: “More Marketing Than Winemaking.” Does his sign deter buyers? It does not. For people seeking something familiar, Weisl said, “that sign is invisible while ‘Yellow Label’ is blindingly bright.”

Wine buyer Joe Salamone of Crush Wine & Spirits in New York takes a far less pugilistic position: “Sometimes it’s better just to hand Veuve to customers.” Some Veuve Clicquot drinkers simply won’t budge from their brand of choice. Salamone is, however, also happy to make alternative recommendations based on price.

The Taste Test

I followed the retailers’ recommendations while keeping my sample size small—just a handful of Champagnes that cost about the same as Veuve Clicquot, $55-65 a bottle. These three stood out:

The Noël Bazin L’Unanime Blanc de Blancs Brut ($56) was a crisp, lively wine with pleasing citrus and green-apple notes. Stephen Bitterolf, founder of the wine’s importer, vom Boden, described winemakers Magali and Noël Bazin as “normal people making really good Champagne.” This all-Chardonnay bottling is indeed really good, yet quite fairly priced. It’s not in huge supply; total production of the Bazins’ various Champagnes is around 17,000 bottles. The good news for anyone hoping to find this one: Much of that production is the L’Unanime Champagne we tasted.

Another all-Chardonnay Champagne from a small producer, the gorgeously aromatic Robert Moncuit Grand Cru Les Grands Blancs Champagne ($63) was bigger and richer than the Bazin. It’s sourced from grand cru villages Le Mesnil-sur-Oger and Oger, produced by a family that’s bottled its own Champagnes for nearly 100 years.

The lush but nuanced Louis Roederer Collection 244 Champagne ($58), from the ever-consistent, midsize, family-owned Roederer Champagne house, proved to be a wine of impressive depth and alluring creaminess. A blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier from multiple vintages, it is also the 244th blend from Roederer and the house’s flagship wine. While the Collection comprises the majority of Roederer’s production and is nationally distributed and fairly easy to find, that production is tiny compared to Veuve Clicquot’s. A Louis Roederer spokesperson estimated that house’s total production was around 5-6% of Veuve Clicquot’s.

When it was finally time for us to taste the Veuve Clicquot, I was secretly hoping that the wine would turn out to be surprisingly good. Instead, it was rather forgettable. While it wasn’t aggressively bad, it was far from great—light, simple and rather dilute. More akin to a Cava than a famous Champagne.

While we all agreed that our three preferred Champagnes offer better value for money than Veuve Clicquot, there was no question of where V.C. reigns supreme: It definitely has the most eye-catching label of any Champagne.