There is a lot of discussion today about growers’-own and single-vineyard Champagnes, with the suggestion that a blanc de blancs or a blanc de noirs is somehow purer and more virtuous than a classic cuvée with all the components playing their parts. Certainly these soloist wines teach you something about terroir, and plenty about obsessive individualism. They also teach you, or at least me, that isolating one of the ingredients of a great dish just leaves you yearning for the others.
