Five independent champagne producers show there’s more to life than Moët & Chandon and Dom Pérignon
- France’s Champagne region is home to thousands of ‘secret’ independent winemakers happy to welcome those thirsty for something different
- Fallet Dart’s cellar holds one million bottles, Gilles Mansard produces brut, rosé, and blanc de blancs, and wine has been made at Champagne Aspasie since 1794
Champagne may rank as one of life’s ultimate luxuries but the choice for many buyers outside France is often limited to the renowned brands, which are known as the grandes maisons: Dom Pérignon, Ruinart, Moët & Chandon, Bollinger, Perrier-Jouët.
Yet for the French, there is a strong tradition of discovering your own champagne producer; an independent vigneron that you may have visited while touring Champagne’s vineyards or discovered at a winemaker stand at a seasonal gourmet fair, perhaps while stocking up for Christmas and New Year.
Chance encounters make for loyal customers, whose friends may later be permitted to order from these “secret” bubbly suppliers. Maybe the new converts will themselves travel to Champagne, to visit the cellar of their new favourite vigneron; the region, whose “hillsides, houses and cellars” are on Unesco’s World Heritage List, is spectacular throughout the year, from spring, when buds hang from the vines, through to harvest time, with its autumn colours, and winter, with its snow-dusted landscapes.
There are thousands of independent winemakers across Champagne, producing their own vintages while crucially selling part of the harvest to the grandes maisons. Some, though, are waking up to the possibility of exporting their own product, especially since the boom in online shopping brought about by the pandemic began.
Here are five vignerons ready to dispatch a courier with a case of their bubbly to a curious Hong Kong champagne lover. And who knows, perhaps that customer may wish to visit when travel is a realistic possibility again.
Champagne Fallet Dart
Just 40km outside Paris, the A4 autoroute exit towards the Marne River immediately heads into champagne country, with rolling hills suddenly covered in vineyards, and quaint signs proposing wine tastings displayed outside almost every village house.
