Back from Champagne

(David Léclpart (right) and me)

Would you believe it? This is my first visit to the Champagne region, but certainly not my last. If I had a Champagne bug inside me before this visit, I now have at least 2.

Over the coming weeks I will do a short story on each of the producers we visited;

Laherte Fréres
Deutz
Bérèche et fils
Ulysse Collin
David Léclapart
Jacques Selosse

Plus I will make a short description on two of the dinners we had there; http://www.labriqueterie.fr/ and http://www.lescrayeres.com/ .

I wish I had a better range of pictures to present to you, but paying attention to a passionate wine producer and taking in depth pictures at the same time is pretty challenging. On top of that we had a rather tight schedule and there where no real opportunities to make stops on the way to shoot the beautiful landscape. Enough whining – there is a still a few goodies among the range, which I hopefully can present at the end of the week.

Overall I would say that coming back from a visit to wine producers, has always made a strong impression on me. The fascination of seeing nature, man and skilled wine making is vitality for most wine lowers. Most of the people I have met behind the labels have strong personalities and are in general very humble people. With Champagne, which on some levels holds a lot of paradoxes, as the massive commercialization and branding of Champagne in general creates a false interpretation of Champagne being a “thing” and not a wine. Luckily it was a real relief to see that this region is no different from others, if you pay attention and look the right places. Among many, but especially the visit to David Léclapart put a thick line under of Champagne being a subtle and majestic wine (when in the right hands) and not all that fluff of protein free air.

But more and that later - so stay tuned as they say.