Champagne Under Siege Again

The most mysterious place in Champagne is not in the vineyards, it’s underground.

If there is any place sacred in the wine business, surely it must be here in the hundreds of miles of underground chalk cathedrals—the tunnels, galleries and arching caves of the Champagne region in northeastern France along the Vesle River.

The chalk was mined out of these caves with pick axes by the Roman army’s slaves during Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul (modern France). The stones were used to build what today is the town of Reims sitting in the middle of green, rolling hills of the greatest sparkling wine producers in the world.

After the first time in these caves, I stopped being just another American worried about where my next Big Mac was coming from. That didn’t seem so important anymore.

The walls of the caves where tens of thousands of bottles are stored are covered with carvings and drawings from generations of people who entrusted their lives to these caves during World War I and World War II.

During WWI the Germans destroyed most of the town. Serious damage was done to the Reims Cathedral, where French Kings had been crowned for over 600 years (from 1180-1825 A.D).

Half of the population of the region was killed and 40% of the vineyards destroyed.

The people of Reims that were still left just set up the town again in the caves. The mayor even built his office on a raft in case of flooding. After four years of bombing, when the war was over, they came out and built the town and the Cathedral back again.

Years later in WWII, thousands of Jews hid here to escape the Nazi tanks rolling over the grass and through the vineyards. In their terror, they left their marks behind, carved into the walls to say “I was alive. I was here” when neither of those things seemed likely.

If you sit very still you can hear them whispering in the darkness. To touch the walls they touched, to trace the carvings with my fingers still there in the chalk—suddenly History was Human.

I could never think about History again as something you read in a book.

Champagne under Siege Again

In 2021, Sévillano Champagne near Epernay, France, failed to make champagne for the first time since 1700.

Ten generations of Christine Sévillano’s family had gone through the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, WWI and WWII without ever missing a vintage.

Until now.

Take a look at the vineyards they are standing in above, and then what those same vineyards look like today.

This is taken from a 60 Minutes television interview by Leslie Stahl aired last Sunday:

“Lesley Stahl: How many bottles were you able to produce this year as opposed to a normal year?

Christine Sevillano: A normal year, I produce around 40, 50,000 bottles.

Lesley Stahl: And, this year?

Christine Sevillano: Zero. It's the first time in the history of my winery that we will not make champagne…

Christine Sevillano: It rained in two or three days that it rained normally in one month. Even my father told me that in his career he has never seen that.

Lesley Stahl: Almost flood like?

Christine Sevillano: Yes.

The worst of it, she goes on to say, came in June and July when the heat and the rains resulted in a more crippling outbreak than usual of funguses like mildew contamination.

Christine Sevillano: In fact, when the grapes are contaminated, the-- the fruit is drying and after we can't use it because there is no juice, nothing.”

I don’t have to tell you, dear readers, that no juice means no wine.

You can see the whole interview here:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wine-industry-climate-change-60-minutes-2022-02-13/

Domaine Carneros (California)

Napa Valley, California is suffering the worst drought in 1200 years.

In 1987, the great French Champagne House of Taittinger, in partnership with Kobrand Corporation, recognized the potential of the southern end of Napa Valley to produce world class champagne and founded Domaine Carneros. Domaine Carneros is now in the 22nd year of the Great Drought.

World famous wine regions in Italy that produce Chianti, Barolo and Prosecco are drying up, Australian vineyards are being destroyed every year by wild fires, just as they are in Napa and Sonoma, Valley and some of the best vineyards in Chile and Argentina have moved hundreds of miles South toward Antarctica where it is cooler.

Other vineyards in Argentina are moving higher up in the mountains and some California Vineyards are planning on doing the same to find cooler weather.

It is the greatest opportunity and the greatest disaster in the wine business for at least the last 800 years.

Traditional areas of wine growing are getting extreme shifts in weather. Too hot, then too cold as they are hit with late spring snow and frosts. Flooding and rampant mildew sucks the grapes dry while other non-traditional areas that have been too cool to grow great grapes, have been warming up.

Now, they are producing world class wines where they couldn’t be produced even 25 years ago. In Oregon and Washington State in the U.S., and even in Vancouver, Canada the wines are improving every year as the climate warms.

A few sparkling wines in upstate New York are doing the same. Experiments from Charbaut Champagne in France were successful a few years ago but due to a change in management, the project was abandoned. Others continue.

And each year, the weather gets warmer, and the Spring comes later.

In 1987, Claude Taittinger, in partnership with Kobrand founded Domaine Carneros in Napa Valley California.

Notes from the Domaine Carneros website

https://www.domainecarneros.com/

Founded by the Taittinger family of Reims, France, Domaine Carneros is first and foremost a sparkling wine house, and with a heritage as distinguished as that of Champagne Taittinger, it's no surprise all of our California sparkling wines are produced using the exacting méthode traditionnelle…

The X-Factors

…The finest sparkling wines are crafted from cool climate Chardonnay and Pinot Noir and our home base of Carneros, just like Champagne, France, is considered "Region 1," the coolest of the five designated regions. Our grapes are also harvested in the cool of the night to ensure minimal bitterness and tannin in the resulting juice.

Once in the winery cellar, it’s time for blending. Our sparkling wines are first made like still wines, which are then blended into cuvées--arguably the most crucial step in the sparkling winemaking process…

And Now, for the Long Finale

Once the blends have been established, we start the long, patient process of méthode traditionnelle. The best known distinction of this technique from other sparkling wine processes is that the wine undergoes a second fermentation in the bottle. Tirage, the addition of sugar and yeast to each bottle, is what ignites the second fermentation and creates those lovely little bubbles.

Domaine Evremond, Kent, England

A more dramatic change may be in England of all places. Taittinger, the same French Champagne House that pioneered French Champagne methods in California, recognized that their traditional Champagne region in France is slowly drying up— yields are already down 40%-60%.

Now, just as they did in California, they have pioneered the first major Champagne winery in England. It’s in Kent County just north of London.

And, with what is by all accounts, spectacular success. Just as they did with Domaine Carneros in Napa Valley.

Their first aged sparkling wines will be released in 2024.

At a Glance – Champagne Taittinger English sparkling wine deal (from Decanter Magazine)

• Taittinger and partners buy 69 ha [hectares] of farmland in Kent. Taittinger has 55% stake in venture

• Multi-million pound investment over 10 years

• Long-term plan to produce 300,000 bottles of English sparkling wine annually

“Classic Champagne grape varieties Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier will be planted on the newly acquired land at Stone Stile Farm, a former apple orchard near to Chilham, and close to Canterbury and Faversham.

A single hectare of vineyard land in England costs around £25,000 on average, albeit it depends on the specific site, according to an estimate by trade body English Wine Producers given to Decanter.com.

That is significantly cheaper than vineyard prices in Champagne, which were €1.2m (£870,000) per hectare on average in 2014, according to France’s ‘Safer’ land agency.

Why Kent?

Forty hectares of the acquired land at Stone Stile Farm have the ‘ideal terroir [and] soil to plant high quality vines’, the Taittinger-led consortium said.

Planting will be on south facing slopes at a maximum height of 80 meters above sea level, the group said. It added that Kent is already proven as an excellent area to grow Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier.

Plus, Canterbury in Kent provides an emotional connection by being twinned with Reims in Champagne. Jean Taittinger formed that relationship between the two cities while mayor of Reims around 45 years ago.

An Historic Shift

I was lucky enough to taste the classic taste of Champagne during the times I spent there, but now that taste is disappearing. Climate change is not going to reverse for hundreds of years, if it reverses at all.

There will be new great wines from new grapes grown in new places. But, the 800 year old traditional tastes of wines in Europe are being wiped out by heat and frost and mildew and it won’t come back.

Even in France, the Institute of Vine and Wine Science at the University of Bordeaux has tested grapes from warm growing regions all over the world and have selected 6 varieties to develop—which was unthinkable 20 years ago.

Bordeaux won’t taste like Bordeaux anymore once the grapes and the weather have changed.

There are great wines lying in cellars all over the world right now. In a generation those will be gone. Then the only places you’ll be able to actually experience those wines will be in books.

But, wine is not something you can learn about in a book any more than history is.

How would you know what music is like if you had only read about it in books? Or, dancing? Or, the traditional foods whose ingredients are disappearing along with the grapes?

Reading about wine is not the same as drinking wine. You are in an historic moment right now. Taste while the tastes are still here.

There is greatness all around you. Grab it while you can.