There is no happier noise than the popping of a cork
Spring is a critical moment in the life cycle of every wine region. It’s the season of bud break and flowering, when you get the first, fragile inkling of the vintage that’s to come. (…)
I ’m not one of those people who pooh-poohs the big houses. Once you’ve witnessed the skill in selecting and blending the vins clairs, or still wines, required to make a single cuvée, it’s impossible not to respect the likes of Louis Roederer, Taittinger or Ruinart, who do this time and again, magnificently, on a grand scale.
But there’s another side to champagne that often gets eclipsed by the razzmatazz. And that’s the many small-scale growers who are also making great fizz — people with dirt under their fingernails, a few barrels in the cellar and plots not much bigger than your own back garden. Arthur Larmandier of Larmandier-Bernier, dusting the baguette crumbs off the passenger seat of his battered old Golf. (…)
Alice Lascelles
En savoir plus : https://www.ft.com/content/2891996e-4a9f-11e9-bbc9-6917dce3dc62