Winery Comtesse LafondNectar Champagne

‘Platinum is very hard-fought’ says co-chair Sarah Jane Evans MW. ‘It’s like something in the Premier League’, she adds, ‘but getting there means it’s going to be something special.’ The Decanter World Wine Awards judging process for Platinum begins after a meticulous first round of tasting, where all entries – this year a record 18,250 – are examined by regional specialists to determine Bronze, Silver, Gold or no award. All wines awarded 95 points (a Gold med ...

Champagne Telmont, a Damery-based house that is part of the Rémy Cointreau group, has recently finished trials of an 800g Champagne bottle, made in partnership with glass manufacturer Verallia, that pushes the very lower weight limits of what is technologically possible for bottle-fermented wines. The lightest standard bottles currently available are 835g. Does shaving off a further 35g really make much difference to carbon emissions? Ludovic du Plessis, president of Champagne Telmont, thinks so ...

Champagne doesn’t have much of a reputation for collective-mindedness. Ever since the region’s governing body decided to force growers to lower their yields during the Covid-hit summer of 2020, fearful of an oversupply of bottles and an undersupply of occasions to drink them, growers and houses have been grappling with a series of disagreements. First there was confusion and protest from a group of ecologically minded vignerons unhappy with the region’s quiet retreat from a proposed herbicide ba ...