The Story of Champagne

It is extraordinary enough that one small area in north-eastern France, on the northern edge of Europe’s wine-growing regions, should be capable of producing the finest sparkling wine in the world, one of the few worth discussing as a wine and not merely as a sparkling beverage. Yet champagne fascinates not only wine lovers, but also historians – social, economic, political – linguists, physiologists, physicists and chemists. The long-awaited new edition of Nicholas Faith’s landmark The sto...