User:Mr Meticulous/Sandbox

Tom Stevenson’s award-winning Champagne supplements were published annually by Wine & Spirit International from 1991 to 1996 inclusive, and by WINE Magazine from 1992 to 1995. Until 1991, there was no such thing as a truly critical or analytical Champagne supplement, due possibly to the lucrative advertising revenue the publications could earn from the famous Champagne brands, which few magazines wanted to upset. Stevenson, however, had built up a reputation for his deeply critical views, published in Wine & Spirit International, on some of Champagne’s more unsavoury practices. Stevenson was never simply negative in his views, as he always analysed the underlying problems and suggested at least one preferable, alternative strategy to resolve any issue. It is quite possible that he utilised a similar modus operandi to resolve the issue of how to remain deeply critical of Champagne’s faults without scaring away the advertising revenue because whereas he was fairly uncritical in the Champagne supplements he wrote for WINE Magazine, he stayed true to his values in the Champagne supplements he wrote for Wine & Spirit International. Neither publication could have been described as overflowing with advertising, but they did secure sufficient revenues to survive, and both supplements received awards.

Having already once won the Glenfiddich Wine Trade Writer of the Year for Champagne articles in published in Wine & Spirit International, his Champagne supplement for this publication won the Prix du Champagne Lanson in 1991, another Glenfiddich Wine Trade Writer of the Year award in 1993, and UK Wine Guild Beaulieu Vineyard Napa Valley Award in 1995. His WINE Magazine Champagne supplement won the Prix du Champagne Lanson in 1993 (which also recognised his ‘Fizz File’ column in the same magazine, the UK Wine Guild Beaulieu Vineyard Napa Valley Award in 1994, and the UK Wine Guild Premier Award in 1994.

It was in the Wine & Spirit International supplement that Stevenson famously introduced his fictional Champagne source as “Sore Throat” to get across views and rumours about which even he dare not speak! And yet, there was hardly any topic too controversial that he would not put his name to it, and many of the solutions that Stevenson proposed have been taken on board by the producers and authorities in Champagne. There have also been some unexpected consequences, such as the disbanding of the Syndicat de Grandes Marques de Champagne in 1997. As Stevenson himself reveals in Christie’s World Encyclopedia of Champagne & Sparkling Wine “This was a direct result of a poll published in the 1991 Champagne supplement for Wine & Spirit International. Every grande marque house was asked whether being a member of this syndicat was - or should be - a declaration of superior quality, and if so, ought there to be some sort of quality criteria that members should abide by.” They were also asked what that criteria should be, and whether the syndicat should be open to membership from any producer that meets such criteria, and whether any existing member that failed to meet the criteria should be “kicked out”. Bollinger was almost alone in answering affirmatively to all questions, and when Christian Bizot, then head of Bollinger, read the answers of his peers, Stevenson claimed that “He did not know what was worse: those who said it was not a declaration of superior quality; those who said it was but thought quality criteria unnecessary; or those who thought criteria necessary but did not want to open up the club to other producers who fulfilled it and thought it unnecessary to kick out any members that failed to meet the terms.”

This led to Bizot publishing his Charter of Ethics & Quality', guaranteeing the quality of every bottle Bollinger Champagne, which prompted other producers to print varying degrees of guarantee on their back labels. When Jean-Claude Rouzaud, the chairman of Champagne Louis Roederer, was elected president of the Syndicat de Grandes Marques de Champagne, he promised a rebirth of the syndicat with “quality criteria and more open membership” or he would resign. When he failed to get all the grandes marques to guarantee the quality criteria of membership, Rouzaud not only resigns, his last act before resigning was to disband the entire syndicat. Technically, no grande marque Champagnes have existed since 1997.

Stevenson’s relentless 20 year campaign against the legal but morally dubious ‘sur-lattes’ practice, whereby certain houses purchase ready-made Champagnes from other producers, slap on their famous label, and sell it as their own played a major role in its eventual banning, and it was in his Wine & Spirit International Champagne supplement that he mounted most of his attacks.

However, it would be wrong to characterize the Wine & Spirit International supplement as solely provocative, as it was mostly intensely analytical, with an annual commentary all the major Champagne markets that has never been matched before or since. This supplement was also extremely illuminating on aspects of Champagne that few other wine critics, if any, knew about, let alone were capable on commenting on, such as the first genetically modified vines (disbanded since the populist global resistance to all things GMO), and the first satellite mapping and on-ground analysis of terroir on a regional basis. This supplement was also the first to reveal that there are more than 12,00 brands of Champagne, but only 2,500 true producers (houses, growers & cooperatives).

Stevenson’s knowledge of the market and his understanding of what could potentially affect the sales of Champagne led him to make the most extraordinarily accurate predictions. In 1991, for example, the demand for Champagne was so high that the price for grapes went through the roof, and no one in Champagne could see an end to increasing consumer demand, yet Stevenson wrote “The 1990s will be the most testing time for Champagne in its 300-year history” and just three years later his prophecy came true as the industry found itself in its worst ever economic crisis. Cynical British journalists were not inclined to believe that the Champagne houses were in financial difficulty until Stevenson published “Champagne’s Balance Sheet” in the 1994 edition of the Wine & Spirit International supplement. To this day, no one knows how he got such detailed information from the notoriously tight-lipped Champagne industry, but Stevenson was able to publish the turnover, the capital, the ratio of capital to debt, the value of the property (buildings and vineyards), the value of stock, the level of borrowings, the ratio of borrowing to turnover, the total debt, pre-tax results and ratio of pre-tax results to turnover for all six groups and 43 individual Champagne houses. Called “State of the Industry”, complete with a box showing “How to read the balance sheet”, this award-winning feature not only reversed the convictions of hardened British journalists, but also convinced many of the worst off Champagne houses just how dire their own situation was. The ratio of borrowing to capital of one house, Pol Roger (Stevenson’s favourite Champagne) was reported to be 245%, and the business was only being kept afloat by the value of its stock. Some of the companies on that balance sheet no longer exist, having gone out of business or taken over, but for Pol Roger the publication of these figures was a wake-up call. Christian de Billy, the majority shareholder, went outside the family firm, and outside of Champagne, to select someone capable of turning around the business. That person was Patrice Noyelle, from Beaujolais, and Pol Roger today is one of the most profitable houses in Champagne.