Miscellaneous...

A story like no other.

Champagne wines have illuminated our lives for centuries with their style and grandeur.

A holy wine

Until medieval times, it was the monks who tended the vines: the wine was blessed and drunk during mass. The wines of Champagne were given a unique destiny when the paths of geography and history crossed. It was Saint Rémi, bishop of Rheims, whilst living in a villa surrounded by vineyards near to the present town of Epérnay, who baptised Clovis when he converted.

The first King of France was anointed with wine from the Champagne region one Christmas evening in 496. Several centuries later, the marriage of Jeanne de Navarre, heiress of Champagne, to the heir to the French throne, later Philip the Fair, linked the destiny of the Lords of Champagne to the crown of France.

Blessed by history

Between 898 and 1825 the kings of France were crowned in Rheims, at the heart of the Champagne region. At the accompanying festivities, Champagne flowed freely. The wines were appreciated for their taste and finesse, and were to become the wines offered in homage to any visiting monarchs. Francis I received a few casks, as did Mary Stuart (later Mary Queen of Scots whilst Louis XVI was offered several hundred pints for his coronation.

From the 12th century onwards, Champagne's reputation began to cross borders and their prestige grew continuously. As they grew in notoriety and were appreciated by the greats of this world, Champagne wines were the chosen wines for celebrations and major events.

An inspiration

Champagne loosens tongues and sharpens pens. In 1736, Voltaire wrote of ‘the sparkling froth of these fresh wines is the sparkling image of us, the French’. Fréderic Chopin began his great love affair with George Sand in Majorca declaring that Champagne would make him witty and indeed, a little mad. The great writer, Alexandre Dumas, claimed that he placed a glass of Champagne beside his inkwell in order to give his pen a sparkling inspiration.

Great musicians were also moved by Champagne: Beethoven wrote a symphony of praise to the wine, but Wagner, bitterly disappointed by the failure of Tannhauser in Paris, was reconciled with France only thanks to this wine ‘which alone had renewed his zest for life’.

At the turn of the century, painters were frequently depicting Champagne in their works. You can see it in the paintings of Utrillo and Toulouse Lautrec, and Manet paints the wine in his ‘Bar at the Folies Bergère’, and between the two lovers in ‘Chez Father Lathuile’.

A star for the stars

The bubbles of Champagne are naturally at the tables of film and theatre stars. Marlene Dietrich wrote that she loved Champagne because ‘it gives the impression that it is Sunday and that the best days will soon be upon us’.

In Ninotchka Greta Garbo plays a Russian girl who discovers Champagne when visiting Paris and among many other film stars, Audrey Hepburn, Jeanne Moreau, Marilyn Monroe and Juliette Binoche all loved Champagne, while Mistinguett and Maurice Chevalier celebrated it in songs.

A wine for romantic heroes

From Pushkin to Henry Miller, from Hemingway to Balzac, from Maupassant to Colette, Françoise Sagan, John le Carré and Ian Fleming - creator of Champagne connoisseur James Bond – innumerable novelists have given the heroes and heroines of their books more than the odd glass of Champagne.

Truman Capote, that most provocative of American writers, claimed that to laugh in the face of death, nothing worked better than a glass of Champagne.

Author, statesman and man of taste Sir Winston Churchill, wrote that Champagne should be a daily delight for those who knew the true meaning of life.