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journalism → support → readers
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we → purchase → commission
Somewhere in Britain, a bottle of champagne is waiting for somebody to get engaged.
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somebody → wait → champagne
Another, bought for a birthday ending in zero, has survived several birthdays ending in other numbers.
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Another → buy → numbers
Relatives, unless exceptional, generally get prosecco.
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Relatives → get → prosecco
This is flattering to champagne and not entirely helpful to Champagne, which has attached its wine so successfully to life’s exclamation marks that the popping cork has become almost shorthand for good news.
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cork → attach → news
World Champagne Day has its own pleasing absurdity.
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Day → have → absurdity
It was devised in 2009 not by a Champenois, but by Californian wine educator, Chris Oggenfus, before Champagne sensibly adopted it.
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Champagne → devise → it
Perhaps it took an outsider to notice that the world’s most famous sparkling wine might occasionally benefit from being drunk rather than revered.
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wine → take → outsider
Read More
The market is hardly collapsing, although nobody in Reims is behaving recklessly.
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nobody → read → Reims
Britain remains one of Champagne’s most important export markets, while shipments this year have proved steadier than some of the gloomier headlines suggest.
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some → remain → headlines
Heat, Harvests and Harps
The vineyards are changing more dramatically.
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vineyards → change → ?
Severe spring frost, intense summer heat and drought made 2026 Champagne’s earliest harvest on record, with picking beginning in some vineyards on 6 August, nearly a month ahead of the traditional mid-September harvest and around a fortnight earlier than 2025.
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picking → make → 2025
The grapes, it seems, are in rather more of a hurry than the customers.
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it → seem → customers
I learnt one example of how Champagne is adapting whilst being serenaded by a harpist at Alex Dilling at Hotel Café Royal during a celebration of Cristal’s 150th anniversary, which is not an especially austere environment in which to contemplate climate change.
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which → learn → change
In the warm 2018 vintage, Louis Roederer cellar master, Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon broadened the usual Cristal palette, drawing on more plots and more Chardonnay than normal.
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master → broaden → plots
Nothing about Cristal 2018 (£238, thefinestbubble.com) tastes remotely corrective: it is taut and luminous, with citrus, white flowers and a saline finish.
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it → taste → citrus
Even Cristal, apparently, sometimes has to change to remain Cristal.
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Cristal → have → ?
The other question is less climatic: when are we meant to drink the stuff?
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we → mean → stuff
Reims has Sacré Burger, where serious grower champagne accompanies burgers and fried chicken, while London acquired Milk Burger on Westbourne Grove this month.
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London → have → Grove
I understand the chemistry.
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I → understand → chemistry
Acidity, bubbles, salt and fat are splendid conspirators, and fried chicken with champagne can be indecently good.
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chicken → fry → champagne
What I cannot embrace is burger juice travelling from fingers to the bowl of a decent glass.
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embrace → embrace → glass
More seriously, putting champagne beside a burger makes it informal, not necessarily accessible.
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it → put → burger
A brioche bun achieves little if the first interesting glass still requires a glance at the bank balance.
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glass → achieve → balance
The greater opportunity is a glass worth ordering on impulse, poured by somebody able to explain why it suits the food without beginning at the Cretaceous period.
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it → order → period
The wines themselves are becoming less obedient.
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wines → become → ?
Taittinger Folies de la Marquetterie (£68, thefinestbubble.com) and incidentally the champagne at my wedding a decade ago, remains the maison’s oaky secret weapon, broader and more Pinot-led than the familiar Taittinger profile, with ripe orchard fruit, brioche and a gently smoky richness.
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Marquetterie → remain → fruit
I have therefore been conducting unusually long-term research.
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I → conduct → research
Palmer & Co La Réserve Nature (£60, fortnumandmason.com) takes the opposite route, managing zero dosage without tasting punitive, all brisk citrus, chalk and salted almond, while Lelarge-Pugeot Tradition (£47.18, strictlywine.co.uk) brings biodynamic farming and Meunier together in a supple mix of apple, plum and warm bread, without leaving the impression that pleasure has somehow compromised the principles.
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pleasure → take → principles
Further south in the Côte des Bar, siblings Lucie and Sébastien Cheurlin make l’Elégante Blanc de Blancs 2017 (£54, gnarlyvines.co.uk) an oak-aged Chardonnay with hazelnut, yellow plum and brioche rather than another impression of lemon squeezed over chalk.
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Cheurlin → make → chalk
Then there is Telmont, the ‘sleeping beauty’ which its charismatic president, Ludovic du Plessis, has been enthusiastically waking with organic conversion, lighter bottles, no gift boxes and, most inconveniently, no air freight.
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president → be → conversion
Leonardo DiCaprio has been a minority investor since 2022, although there is a pleasing consequence to his maison’s environmental zeal: he can be among the last to encounter a new cuvée in America because even Hollywood does not get a plane.
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Hollywood → be → plane
Réserve de la Terre Rosé N°002 (£79.95, thewhiskyexchange.com) is made from organic fruit and tastes of blood orange, cherry and spice, with enough savoury grip to take it well beyond aperitif territory, giving pink champagne more useful employment than waiting for 14th February.
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N → make → February
DiCaprio called Telmont’s approach ‘the taste of the future’ when he invested; du Plessis has spent rather more time making sure the future arrives deliberately.
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future → call → time
Women, Waiting and West Sussex
Who gets pours matters too.
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gets → get → pours
The racy, mirabelle plum-scented Drémont-Marroy Le Triau Extra Brut (£52, ladyofthegrapeswines.com) is bright and dry, with citrus peel and a lightly chalky finish.
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Brut → scent → peel
It is made by Mélanie Drémont and imported directly by Carole Bryon of Lady of the Grapes, a former graphic designer whose Covent Garden and London Bridge restaurants put female winemakers at the centre of the list throughout the year rather than rediscovering them every March.
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restaurants → make → them
At London Bridge, Le Triau is particularly good alongside the gougères, whose light choux shells release a decidedly messy Époisses custard.
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shells → release → custard
Fingers may be involved, although unlike the burger I am prepared to make an exception.
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I → involve → exception
…and 21 more, not listed.
The Aporia
