In theory, it ought to be easy to hate on the Champagne house Bollinger. They’re big (producing about 3 million bottles annually); they’re kitschy-famous (getting the royal warrant from the UK market in 1884, and then becoming the official Champers of agent 007); they’re fairly corporate (a staggering – and, one imagines, barely manageable –…
Category: on the road
That *Other* Perrier (Joseph Perrier Champagne Recent Releases)
Jean-Claude Fourmon – president of the fourth-generation family-owned Joseph Perrier in Châlons-en-Champagne – doesn’t seem at all deterred by the fact that, in the U.S., his brand is probably best known as “that other Perrier” that not-as-many people have tasted. He’s quick with amusing witticisms, bordering on platitudes if not for his fantastic delivery; things…
Blanc de Blancs, In The Nude (Jacques Lassaigne Recent Releases)
If you’re in the bubbly business in the Aube (the southern region in France’s Champagne-Ardenne), then you have to make peace with the fact that, compared with the popular Épernay and Ay to the north, you’re basically the red-headed stepchild of Champagne. Unless you’re Emmanuel Lassaigne, who crafts the bubbly at Champagne Jacques Lassaigne. In…
On The Fine Art Of Not Giving A Sh*t (Wiegner Etna Recent Releases)
Viewing the volcanic rock strewn about the foothills of the still-active Mt. Etna volcano, one would be forgiven for imagining that it must take a crazy person to want to farm anything there. After meeting the wily and eccentric Peter Wiegner, the paterfamilias of Etna’s Wiegner Winery, and his huge Tibetan Mastiff patrolling the grounds…