Colette & Gaston – Excellent Quality/Price Ratio

I’ve already talked about Champagne and its alternatives. In my opinion, for the bubble of all bubbles, what someone recently wrote in Decanter about Bordeaux also applies: above €50, you find exceptional products. However, the flip side of the coin is that below €50, you can’t expect much.

We’ve all experienced that €30 bottle or a glass for under €10 that made us think, “Hmm, I feel like I paid for the name on the label more than the wine.” It’s an infamous price range where quality is rarely found, which is why it’s worth highlighting products that manage to combine affordability with good quality—like Champagne from Colette & Gaston.

The Producer: Colette & Gaston

The Colette & Gaston maison is located in the heart of the Coteaux Sud d’Épernay, precisely in the village of Monthelon. Founded in 1947 as the Coopérative de Monthelon-Morangis, the company, still a cooperative owned by the founders’ descendants, owns vineyards growing on soils rich in limestone, clay, and chalk. The main grape varieties cultivated are Meunier, Pinot Noir, and Chardonnay, as Champagne tradition dictates.

It’s a small producer, and gathering information about them is challenging. But this is precisely one of the most fascinating aspects of Champagne: the high density of small producers waiting to be discovered. I found these bottles at the small but always delightful epicerie Vollgut, in Vienna’s 14th district. Kudos to the owners for securing them.

The Champagne: Colette & Gaston

The first bottle I tried, I drank “onta,” as we say in Veneto, paired with a good beef burger and a fish burger. In the glass, the golden yellow color hinted at a complex nose rich in nuances: apple, warm crushed stone, and white flowers. The bouquet displayed complexity and depth, yet maintained a freshness that avoided any notes of autolysis. The perlage was perfect—slightly broad yet simultaneously light and dense. On the palate, this Champagne revealed itself as silky, rather rich yet taut, with chalky nuances evolving into a finish of yellow plum and orange zest, perfectly cleansing the mouth. It won me over because it never took the shortcut of opulence, maintaining a fresh and steely character that was almost sensual. It brought aromatic freshness to the fish burger and paired perfectly with onion rings and truffle mayonnaise—both complex flavors—while it struggled a bit against the beef burger. A fun and deceptively fresh Champagne, complete in every facet.

As often happens with small producers, the flip side of the coin is that not all bottles are of the same quality. In this case, the second iteration was less impressive, to my slight disappointment.

I opened the second bottle of “Colette & Gaston” Champagne for a birthday, pairing it with cake. The golden yellow color accompanied a pleasant nose with notes of apple, pear, dough, and crushed rock. The bouquet remained very interesting, but the perlage impressed me less than before: the bubbles were sparse and weak, and on the palate, I detected a syrupy note that I didn’t enjoy, conveying a sense of lost freshness. However, the finish recovered with a hint of wet stone, evoking memories of spring rains, lingering long and enriched by a slight herbaceousness that cleansed the palate. Less enjoyable than the previous time, but still valid.

For a Champagne priced around €30, slightly inconsistent quality is not an insurmountable issue. In the worst case, it’s an enjoyable sparkling wine. In the best, it’s a complex, fresh, and highly precise glass for a truly affordable price.

Another wine worth mentioning is the After Eight Shiraz by Stellenrust. Excellent Champagne can be found in Vienna at the Dosage Champagner Bar.