‘My weekend in champagne’ - day two

We had a very slow start on Sunday. We decided to stop for coffee and a chausson aux pommes overlooking the fields and vineyards, it was a beautiful calm bright morning, with a slight breeze. Such a gorgeous start to the day, we really were in no rush to get anywhere. However, we had some Champagne tastings to do. We had decided to head back to Meurville, where we had visited a few weeks ago and tasted at Jérome Cothias. There were about 5 further producers in Meurville that were opening their doors for this weekend.

As we turned off the main road we noticed lots of stalls with bunting set up for tastings in the field to our left, but Brian spotted a sign advertising a barrel making demonstration at Christian Etienne, so we decided to head there.

We were greeted with a very warm welcome and soon learnt that David, who would do the barrel making demonstration, was the son of Christian Etienne the wine producer. Whilst chatting to some other family members, and friends of the family, we were invited to join a tour of the winery. Christian Etienne had set up this site in 1978. Christian spoke passionately about his production, about what was important to him, and the philosophy that he has followed, and how he creates exceptional Champagne for all our palettes.

It was a very extensive production, and everything he needed to produce a bottle of champagne was all on site, from the pressing of the grapes, to filtering the particles from the juice, maturing the wine in oak barrels - specially chosen by him for his production - to the degorgement and bottling. And I can agree he does make exceptional champagne.