A brief history of the Côte des Bar
Isolated from the remainder of the appellation, the Côte des Bar – which falls in the larger ‘Aube’ region of Champagne – is around 100 miles south...
Read moreChampagne Alexis, Gaspard Brochet, Famille Delouvin, Remy Lequeux-Mercier. Aside from being great winemakers, what else do they have in common? Bel...
Read moreFor most of its life, Champagne has just been ‘Champagne’. Specifically, where the bottle in your hand actually comes from within the strictly-deli...
Read moreThe last thing anybody expects from a bottle of Champagne is a fault, but there’s nothing stopping even the most illustrious sparkling wines from d...
Read moreThe word ‘terroir’ gets bandied around a great deal in the world of wine. A French word with no true English equivalent, it broadly encompasses all...
Read moreYou’ll likely have spotted the words ‘sur lie’ (translation ‘on the lees), printed on labels of, not only Champagne, but wine in general. In this a...
Read moreBe it art, music, sport or, in this case, Champagne, a better understanding of a particular passion in life generally increases the pleasure and en...
Read moreChampagne is in the midst of a power struggle... On the one hand, there’s pure commerce. Champagne sales reached six billion Euros for the first ti...
Read moreSugar is one of the most misunderstood topics in wine, and Champagne finds itself in the crosshairs more often than most thanks to the role of ‘dos...
Read moreSay ‘oaky’ to most wine drinkers and they’ll think of big reds and creamy, rich whites. Even in Champagne, though, oak can sometimes go a long way ...
Read moreNon-Vintage. Brut Sans Année. Entry-level. There are few ways of describing the largest category of wines in Champagne without sounding a little…no...
Read moreMany of Europe’s most celebrated wine regions ‘classify’ their wines, offering (in theory) a suggestion of where a bottle might sit in a region-wid...
Read moreWhat does the name on a bottle of Champagne actually mean? A person, a family, an estate or perhaps a company? Brands want us to feel like we know ...
Read moreThe smaller producers barely get a look in. That is, until now.