The journey begins under the worst circumstances: a 3-hour delayed flight due to torrential rain in Paris and surrounding areas, overflowing rivers, Civil Protection on the streets… I wonder why, every time I leave for a vacation, something stressful always has to happen. Perhaps it’s to make me appreciate even more the beautiful things that will happen. Someone once wrote to me, "you are attracted to beauty by gravity, unknowingly." Nothing could be more true.
Anyway, set off for Champagne full of ideas and beliefs, with such a spirit I was heading towards its "discovery" in the field. So the next morning I get up all pumped up, with a nice visit already organized in Merfy, above Reims, by Chartogne-Taillet. Finally, I will see the landscape in the daylight, finally I will truly experience Champagne, I tell myself. The first of my many wrong beliefs becomes evident right away, as soon as I get into the car and drive a few kilometers: the size of the spaces! Here everything is gigantic, the wheat fields are endless, then immense forests, suddenly you turn a curve and a tiny village surrounded by vineyards as far as the eye can see appears, then again wheat, sunflowers, meadows. An endless succession of different crops.
I imagined Champagne differently: more in the style of Cote d'Or, with one immense, gigantic expanse of vineyards in 360 degrees.
But no. Of course, around the most prestigious villages, among its gentle hills, the scenery seems more or less the same. But then you just take a bend and everything changes; you really feel like you are in the countryside. A unique countryside, with large stretches of intensive monoculture of vines, but also equally large stretches of pure 1800s. The towns are empty at any time: you can't tell if it's because people are in the fields, or if they are working somewhere, or if everything is stuck in some different space-time fold. There are no places where you imagine people go to drink or have fun, unless they are in the fields or working.
And what can be said about Champagne in a strict sense? If you're not particularly lucky or knowledgeable—though in most cases, ideally both—set off for Champagne with an idea in your head of what this product is: yes, a charming, elegant, perfect, and sparkling wine capable of making you feel good and accompanying you wonderfully during evenings with friends or lovers. I had a minimum of background, to be honest. Minimal. But it was a baggage too light to face such a long and complex journey without consequences.
The first slap hits me square in the face that very first morning, from Chartogne-Taillet. We look for their location, and yes, I had some expectations, after all, we are talking about a niche producer of great quality. Instead, we practically walk right into his house. Alexander makes us comfortable on leather couches and pops open one after another 11 wonderful Champagnes. We are in his home discussing the why’s and how’s, in a relaxed atmosphere, like old friends, at times surreal. He tells us about the parceling of Merfy, his winemaking processes that seem anything but champenoise. They seem more Burgundian. And here I was, arriving with my head full of cuvée concepts, blends, vin de reserve, and I find myself before Alexander who, on just a few hectares in Merfy, parcels microscopic vineyards and bottles them separately. Creating complex wines, broad wines, wines. They almost don’t seem like Champagne. I almost can’t explain it. And he tells us about his passion for the subsoil, for every single difference he wants to explore, and his concept of terroir. I will discover in these days that here, in Champagne, everyone develops their own concept of terroir. Two hours will pass that feel like moments. He bids us farewell, apologizing, because he had an appointment. He sold us nothing (he can’t do that), he didn’t charge us anything for the visit. He generously gifted us two hours of his life, comfortably seated on his couch. Another slap in the face.
Then, here is what happens, the opposite of everything experienced so far.
After a brief visit to Reims, we head for a tasting at Taittinger. A great house this time.
Imagine entering a luxury boutique on via Tornabuoni in Florence. Everything is perfect. The salespeople (I can’t help but call them that!) all dressed alike and impeccably, complete with silver shoes, double laces, and heels. Everything unfolds as if we were on two parallel tracks. We visit the deep plaster galleries, and every part of the process is inevitably explained to us, with references to ancient noble glories. Everything soars to peaks of prestige, in a collective imaginary of unattainability. Even the champagnes they will have us taste in a room that seems to have come out of a furniture catalog. Perfect, impeccable, a precise classic expression of taste. What can I say? Totally the exact opposite of what we had just experienced that very morning. Even regarding the cost of the visit, ça va sans dire. Yet all this is capable of moving you, always. Another slap in the face. We return home confused and happy after a day, to be honest, emotionally turbulent.
The journey doesn't end here. Continue with: Côte de Blancs and Vallee de la Marne, all the shades of the most famous bubbles in the world
