The name Laurent-Perrier conjures up thoughts of freshness and elegance and classically structured champagnes. The Maison is steeped in impressive history that has served not only their own champagnes, but also champagne collectively, with a family at the helm as wonderful ambassadors. Today the Maisons’ prestige cuvée, Grand Siècle, is represented by fourth-generation, Lucie Pereyre de Nonancourt. In person, Lucie is one of the nicest and most approachable people that you will ever meet....

Champagne Ayala may not share the same level of fame as its sister-House, Bollinger, but since it was acquired by Bollinger in 2005, it has been revived, reinvented and put firmly back on the champagne map. Though founded and still based in Aÿ, an area that has been historically celebrated for its pinot noir, the Maison’s focus is on chardonnay. Ayala possesses a lightness and freshness but also creamy texture that makes their champagnes very easy to drink. After recent successive and...

What does it take to not only be the best, but to keep on being the best? Champagne Salon has earned a cult-like status amongst those who appreciate the Maison’s ability to make some of the finest and most exclusive blanc de blancs in all of Champagne. Limited to just 50,000 bottles per year for the entire world, Salon commands some of the highest prices for a single bottle each release and often tops-out the secondary market for champagnes from much older vintages. It leaves many champagne...

When you think of Champagne Pol Roger it’s likely to conjure up thoughts of the royal family or Sir Winston Churchill. These are important historical but also contemporary connections to what they humorously consider to be the ‘most British’ of champagne brands. But you’re also likely to consider Pol as producing some of the most classical and elegant champagnes. Very few other Maisons apply such exacting precision to the management of their production facilities, pressing and vinification...

The name ‘Perrier’ in Champagne conjures up thoughts around history and prestige. In the case of Joseph Perrier, the spirit of the House is evoked by tradition, quality and particularly family. Since 1825 it has been managed, largely, by a succession of fathers and sons. Six generations on, Joseph Perrier remains an independent and authentic family managed Maison under the stewardship of Chairman and CEO (and family member) Benjamin Fourmon. With Benjamin at the helm, the Maison has...

Dominique Demarville is one of Champagne’s legendary winemakers, with an impressive career spanning more than two decades as a vineyard director, cellar master and general manager at some of Champagne’s leading Maisons.   In 2003 he became Director of vines and wines for both G.H.Mumm and Perrier-Jouët before moving onto Veuve Clicquot where he was Cellar Master and Deputy Director. They were golden opportunities to delve deep into the complex world of champagne winemaking at the highest...

Louis Roederer’s chef de caves, Jean Baptiste Lécaillon, is something like a unicorn in Champagne. He is much more than a winemaker – or winegrower – for that matter. It’s no secret that he has been a trailblazer for progressive sustainability, not only at the Maison, but across the entire industry. I like to think of him as a grand philosopher – a kind of maestro – for the region’s trajectory for environmental change to be better prepared for climate challenges, but also for what he...

Charles Heidsieck’s acclaimed Blanc des Millénaires has earned cult status amongst those lucky enough to have tried it. It’s mineral and pure, playing more to the soil than sunshine, but finding its balance here too. Only chardonnay taken from five grand crus in the Côte des Blancs is used in this effortlessly delicious and smoothly textured champagne of euphoric wonder. Long lees ageing in Charles’ heritage listed crayères produces these champagnes with a velvety texture and creamy...

Today we are going to delve into the mysterious world of reductive champagne winemaking. If you’re a champagne lover – or any wine lover – no doubt you’ve heard this discussed in a way that is oversimplified, or maybe misleading. But it is a hugely complex and sometimes confusing topic. The best examples of reductive winemaking, produce wines of freshness and fruit character that are pure and layered with elegance and tension. This stands in contrast to oxidative winemaking which allows a...

Today we’re going to look at typicity. Typicity can be seen as what is ‘typical’ for a wine’s origins  - geography, terroir, varietal type, even viticulture and winemaking. But what does it mean when applied to champagne?  I cannot think of anyone more qualified to talk about this concept of typicity than my guest today, Marcell Kustos PhD, who has built an impressive career as a fine wine and hospitality consultant, working with some of Australia’s best restaurants including the multi...

I first met Stephen Leroux in 2018 during a visit to Charles Heidsieck in Reims. He greeted me with a warm smile and a friendly handshake, before getting down to tasting business. Unusually we started with Charles’ Rosé Reserve. He told me, “we like to start with a non-vintage rosé as the amount of reserve wine is twice less – at 20% with just five to six years’ of age. In our Brut Reserve, it’s the opposite with 40% reserve wine at an average of 10 years of age.” It was a pivotal moment...

Tom Hewson is a writer and self-confessed ‘bubblehead’ specialising in a subject he is most passionate about – champagne. Tom joined Decanter’s team of expert writers earlier in 2023, where he provides incredibly detailed coverage on champagne and other sparkling wines, as well as special reports for Tim Atkin MW and as a judge for the 2023 Decanter World Wine Awards. His love of words and wine came together in an unconventional way, during COVID, when he gave up his life on the road as a...

Peter Liem is one of Champagne’s most recognised and celebrated ambassadors. Known for his almost surgical approach to dissecting and interpreting Champagne’s unique terroir, he has been one of the region’s greatest pioneers in bringing our awareness back to Champagne’s sense of place. As a young wine professional in the 1990s, he got his first thirst for champagne with a bottle of 1979 Salon. That bottle of Salon, he says, from a single village of Le Mesnil-sur-Oger was no less complete...

Today it’s my great pleasure to introduce one of Australia’s leading and most respected wine professionals. Annette Lacey is Group Beverage Manager for Solotel, overseeing a large and diverse range of hospitality venues in Sydney, which includes Matt Moran’s multi award-winning restaurants. She completed the rigorous Master of Wine program in 2020 and is a certified WSET educator focusing on developing the next generation of wine professionals. Annette was also selected for the highly...

There are few people in Australia’s hospitality scene who command the level of respect, amongst peers, that our next guest does. Amanda Yallop is the group wine director at FINK, overseeing an extensive and demanding program of leading restaurants and bars: Quay, Bennelong, OTTO Sydney, OTTO Brisbane, Firedoor (Surry Hills), Gildas and Beach Byron Bay. In 2013, Amanda became a Scholar of Len Evans Tutorial. She’s an alumni of the Advanced Wine Assessment Course through The Australian Wine...

Since 1829 Champagne Bollinger has been making great wines with a powerful and aromatically rich fruit profile. The Maison has forged a clear identity with its rich pinot noir driven style earning a legion of fans from James Bond to the British Royal Family. While many Maisons chose long ago to undertake stainless steel vinification, the Maison decided overwhelmingly to use oak. This combined with the chalky typicity of Bollinger’s terroir – namely in Aӱ, Verzenay and Cuis - produces a...

Sara Underdown, publisher and presenter of VINE & BUBBLE, takes you on a journey to discover the real story of champagne - the people, the region, the history and - of course - the wine. We travel to Champagne and all over Australia, talking with the Cellar Masters, industry representatives and everyone in between to connect wine lovers with the story behind the finest bubbles of all. Make sure you follow and subscribe to get the latest podcast uploads.

Today I am in Champagne chatting with Essi Avellan about her remarkable personal and professional journey with champagne. Essi is Finland’s first Master of Wine, a renowned champagne and sparkling wine specialist, author of several wine books and has revised and extended the 3rd and 4th edition of Tom Stevenson’s award-winning Christie’s World Encyclopaedia of Champagne and Sparkling Wine. But not only! She is an organiser of the annual Grand Champagne Helsinki event, a reputed wine judge –...

Today, I am in Champagne as part of a two-day special event with a Maison we’re probably all familiar with, Piper-Heidsieck. We’re going to meet the man behind Piper’s winemaking and viticultural team, and creator of a brand new champagne that goes deep into the DNA of Piper-Heidsieck’s black-fruit driven vibrant and fresh style - the new Essentiel Blanc de Noirs Cuvée. His name is Émilien Boutillat, who just happens to be Champagne’s youngest chef de caves at just 36. Among other...