Now that we’re approaching the apex of celebration season, I find myself wondering, with every toast: Why Champagne? Besides being delicious, what accounts for its specific mystique, its literal elevated status - the raised glasses in which we so often hold the stuff  - its figurative fizz, if you will? 

Sounds odd, but I think it in large part comes down to the inevitable tension between bubbles and time. On the one hand - nothing sparkling can stay that way for long; on the other, the precision, attention, and patience it takes to produce great Champagne, the rigorous and lengthy stations of methode Champenoise (assemblage, remouage, degorgement, dosage) require a life’s work – all to conjugate a particular future-present pluperfect tense. The sound a popped Champagne cork makes is NOW and it starts the countdown to the end of each bottle’s effervescence. So we use Champagne to welcome each New Year, punctuate personal milestones, and bookmark special occasions because it’s a libation commensurate with our ambivalence over nothing ever staying the same. 

Or maybe it’s something more like what beloved, problematic author Roald Dahl (creator of Fizzy Lifting Drink after all) allegedly told his daughter once: “I drink it because it’s fizzy and makes me go WHEEE.” 

Either way, reaching the end of another year, and trying to select a bottle that bridges the gap between the NYE NOW! and NYD NOW WHAT‽, my thought process was: if we want some new looks for the new year (and I certainly do), we should probably consult a visionary - and Phillipe Lancelot is certainly that. 

 After inheriting the grand cru parcels his family had farmed since the 1970’s, Philipe embarked on a mission to overhaul and revitalize these invaluable heirlooms, partnering with Hervé Jestin of Leclerc Briant to convert to organic and biodynamic farming  -  rarer in Champagne than other parts of the winemaking world - achieving all the most rigorous certifications by 2015. Since 2015, Phillipe has also eschewed the use of added sulfites as well, which is even harder to find, and perhaps even a first for the Champagne Club. His are extremely small production bottlings, where every vintage very much has its own DNA. As Philipe himself is fond of saying: “Nature is well made, there is surely nothing better than nature?”

 I agree, but I love the question mark at the end there too, since I think it clarifies the message in this particular bottle. It is delicious and will rise to whatever occasion, whether you’re using it to welcome the new year, or saving it for a special celebration yet to come. And that is kind of amazing. As another ponyboy visionary famously noted once: “Nature’s first green is gold/her hardest hue to hold.” Yet somehow Champagne manages - at least for a while. 

Happy New Year!

The PlumpJack Family