Raise a glass to Champagne: Where to try the world's most celebrated wine
Champagne’s tching-a-ding image serves it well. It ensures that we receive a glass of bubbles whenever we marry, win at Monaco or host an evening at the embassy. Or, in my case, come second at Guess Who?
But the image has a downside. The frothy symbol of festivity obscures that champagne is, first and foremost, a real wine. As Philippe Secondé of Champagne Barnaut says: “Champagne is a proper vignoble, with all that that implies for diversity. There are as many different wines as there are winemakers. This is what makes it interesting.”
And that’s exactly why we go: to roam bespoke vine fields, hills and forest, villages boasting the prettiness of hard-won prosperity and the sense that champagnes are really rooted in a landscape upon which man and nature have bestowed epic tranquillity.
One of three key champagne zones in the Marne, the Montagne de Reims, is less a mountain, more a gentle plateau where hand-stitched vines roll in waves up to woodland across the top.
Hillside villages – Rilly-la-Montagne, Verzenay – are all engaged in a conspiracy against the brutish world beyond, which is great if your life, like mine, could use extra finesse. But it’s a conspiracy that emerges from farming backgrounds of dads and mums, sisters and brothers, tractors, wellies and buckets. Great-granddad dug out the cellars with a pickaxe. Granddad walled them up, to hide the wine from the Nazis. Post-war, Dad opened them again. Their photographs (neckerchiefs, waistcoats, moustaches) are on the winery walls.
Of around 15,800 champagne grape-growers, some 4,300 make their own wines. That’s so many different tastes and so many human stories, which the international brands can’t match. You drink from an independent family house and you’re drinking with Jean-Bernard, Chantal, their kids, their forebears and a whole way of life they’ve all worked hard to maintain. And freed of marketing, PR and transport costs, their champagnes are usually a lot cheaper for equivalent quality.
So curve round the Montagne de Reims, to Verzy where, 18ft up, Olivier Couteau’s Perching Bar is the only champagne bar in a tree. Book on 0033 607 679442, and sit, sundowner-style, on the cabin terrace.
Further south, on the gentle chardonnay slopes of the Côte des Blancs, the talk is of elegance. I have, during tastings, chipped in with Madame de Pompadour’s view that “champagne is the only drink which enhances a woman’s beauty”. (“Up to the third bottle,” said my hostess. “Then it’s circus-time.”)
To the east, the Marne river provides the running commentary for vine slopes and independent producers who have been working with pinot meunier since Dom Pérignon was a 17th-century novitiate. Pérignon maybe didn’t, as claimed, invent champagne, but certainly moved it along, pioneering blending, corkage and thicker bottles that didn’t explode.
Pay respects at his tomb in the church in Hautvillers. Then curve with the river, stopping to taste at domains as you go. Don’t hesitate. As mentioned, we’re great customers. We’re popular. If the welcome is sub-standard, drive on; there will be another soon. Much later curve back to Reims or rival Épernay where the Avenue de Champagne is rich in great names: Moët & Chandon, Perrier-Jouët, Churchill’s favourite Pol Roger.
You might finish with a flourish at the C Comme Champagne bar, a cracking spot that showcases independent producers at 8 Rue Gambetta. Don’t hold back. As Scott Fitzgerald wrote: “Too much of anything is a bad thing, but too much champagne is just right.” Quite.
Pick of the wineries
Barnaut, Bouzy, Montagne de Reims
There are three reasons to visit Philippe Secondé’s family set-up. Firstly, the grand cru wines are terrific and various, reflecting Secondé’s conviction that the appeal of champagne is diversity. His nine cuvées are different expressions of land, character and grape variety. If you don’t believe me, step into his shop in Bouzy, go up to the counter and have a tasting.
This rich, variously stocked domain shop is the second reason to visit. It means you don’t need to hang about waiting for the winemaker. Someone is always available to talk to and taste with. Should that person be Philippe Secondé or his wife, Laurette, you’ll be with – third reason – the most seriously convivial people in the region. The 100 per cent pinot noir Blanc de Noirs Brut, at £20, would be my choice, notably through a meaty meal.
Voirin-Jumel, Cramant, Cote des Blancs
For those who follow Voirin-Jumel closely – and we are numerous – the good news is that Cachou the Jack Russell is still alive, still following co-owner Alice Voirin around and still limping, but only in her presence.
“When he’s not with me, he trots normally,” she says. Other good news is, the family set-up now has an on-site champagne bar in which you may have a glass from £4, any day but Sunday. Should you wish to taste and talk, staff will be delighted. If not, sip on.
The final good news is V-J wines remain startling value-for-money examples of the Côte des Blancs, with Brut Tradition at £14 and the top-end 555 at £26.
Charlier, Montigny-sous-Chatillon, Vallée de la Marne
Overseeing the valley from the neighbouring village of Châtillon-sur-Marne, the statue of Urban II – the local pope behind the first crusade – is the size of a dozen real-life pontiffs. A good thing?
Best repair to Charlier where the ladies of the house are as charming as if they weren’t called upon to welcome us every working day. They’ll tell you all you need to know about the fruity immediacy of pinot meunier and vinification that takes place entirely in oak vats vast enough to house a student or two. At tasting time, you’ll maybe find Charlier more intense than others. Pinot meunier does that; the oak enhances. This suits me fine. I can’t get enough, especially at £14.50 for the Carte Blanche, £15.50 for the Carte Noire Brut. By the second glass, the question had been answered: the bigger the pope, the better.
Wafflart-Briet, Sacy, Montagne de Reims
Most vineyard visits assume you’ll be motoring. But perhaps you arrived in Reims by train. In which case call up Rachel, a Cheshire lady married into the Wafflart-Briet champers dynasty. She’ll pick you up in Reims or Épernay and whisk you to the family’s winery for vineyard and cellar visits, a picnic or restaurant lunch, tastings, chat and more premier cru champagne. Prices from £148pp for a four-hour, lunch-included trip. That sounds a lot but it’s standard for Champagne. I doubt you’ll account the money wasted.
Tribaut, Hautvillers, Vallee de Marne
To catch the Champagne landscape in one eyeful, make for Valérie and Vincent Tribaut’s tasting room. Take a glass of Cuvée Réserve, move to the window and behold the vines extending down to the Marne valley with Renaissance discipline. This is the harmony the best champagne captures. From here, you’ve Hautvillers behind, with its Dom Pérignon tomb, wrought-iron signs and tight streets from which historical turbulence has been rinsed. Before you is Valérie, one of the loveliest, most enthusiastic winemakers, pouring three tasting glassfuls for £8.75. She’ll knock the money off if you then buy six bottles, as you should. The Cuvée Réserve is but £14 a bottle. You’d need to add a tenner to that for big-name bubbly of a similar class.
