About Champagne
Bordeaux, Burgundy, and the Rhône Valley are the best known wine regions of France except for Champagne. This sparkling wine from the chalk slopes east of Paris is France’s best answer to a global brand. It is the drink of celebration, of success, and the best way to drown sorrows. And, unlike the still French wines, which have been successfully copied around the world, Champagne remains inimitable, despite thousands of attempts. The combination of cool climate, chalk soil and there’s no other word for it terroir are just so special. Like virtually every part of France, the Champagne wine region is subdivided into smaller parts, but unlike in other parts of France, those subregions rarely appear on the bottle. Although there are exceptions, like
With every new visit to the Hill Country, the state’s wines get more impressive. Winemakers are serious and invested, crafting delicious wines with a sense of place. The tasting-room experiences strike a careful balance between informative and just plain fun. Texas wine has arrived and it’s right here in our backyard.
With vaccination rates going up and that glimmer of light at the end of the pandemic tunnel becoming brighter, those looking for an adventure close to home this summer should consider the Hill Country. The wine region is large, but the 55-mile stretch of U.S. 290 between Dripping Springs and Fredericksburg is where the action is at.
Big-name Champagne houses can produce bottles with prices running well into triple figures. This is particularly true for older vintages, which have longer winemaking processes and huge marketing budgets. The key thing is to work out what style you like, then match your budget accordingly.
Vintage or non-vintage (NV)?
As already mentioned, vintage Champagnes are more expensive, but they also tend to taste different to non-vintage varieties. Vintage Champagnes usually spend longer “on the lees” (lees is the yeast used in the fermentation process) and have those prized deep, bready, brioche notes as a result. Non-vintage Champagnes are more likely to have fresher, citrus and floral notes.
Matt Monk of the Whalley Wine Shop suggests its time to blow the dust off those ‘special occasion’ bottles
The longer it spends on the shelf, the more reverence we seem to attach to it, and the harder it gets to open it.
Thursday, 29th April 2021, 12:30 pm
I don’t know about any of you, but I have a bottle of champagne in my fridge for special occasions. It’s been there for more than 18 months. In that time we’ve had six ‘in-house’ birthdays, two wedding anniversaries, an engagement, youngest starting uni, oldest moving out, oldest moving back in, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, winning awards at work, and yes, Getting Over Covid!! And it’s still in the fridge waiting for that special occasion.
IT S home to the UK s first vineyard treehouses and it s right in the heart of Hampshire. Award-winning winery Black Chalk has joined forces with Wild Escapes to build four luxury treehouses adjacent to its Hide Vineyard on The Fullerton Estate, high above the Test Valley close to Stockbridge. The treehouses, created by master craftsman Will Hardy, opened briefly for preview bookings in December and re-opened last week when the latest lockdown restrictions were lifted. Demand has been unprecedented from Brits desperate to leave their own four walls and enjoy a staycation. They are already fully booked for the best part of the next two years.