"[Indistinct conversation]" "[Strauss's blue danube waltz]" "[burner roaring]" "Male narrator:" "Some things we do are pure fantasy, crazy notions that we keep up our sleeve for a special day." "Hot air ballooning is one of them." "In France, they call these things montgolfiere." "The name honors the man..." "A frenchman, of course..." "Who invented the balloon more than 200 years ago." "The celebration today is in honor of the 40th birthday of Xavier gonet, champagne maker." "For the first time in his life, he's looking down on the vines that his family has harvested for hundreds of years." "[speaking French]" "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "The first strange thing about the champagne region is how far north it is:" "North and east of Paris..." "Further north than alsace." "In fact, it's the most northerly wine-growing region in continental Europe." "Just up the road, the Belgians make beer, not wine." "The second thing to note is the soil." "In much of champagne, it's pure chalk just below the surface." "Blinding, white chalk, and the remains of seashells from prehistoric oceans." "These give the best champagne its clean, crisp finish." "And the topsoil with a dusting of minerals below gives the flavor." "April 2012." "A strong, hot start to the wine-making year in France." "Stephane coquilette inspects his vines with martine saunier, who imports his champagne into the U.S." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "Stephane is an independent grower-producer who creates top-of-the-line boutique wines." "But more and more of the vineyards are owned by the big names who dominate champagne in a way that's unheard of in burgundy or Bordeaux." "The competition for stephane and other small producers is not the appellation down the road but the marketing and purchasing power of major corporations." "Champagne is an industry with a massive global market to defend." "The companies range from vast, international luxury goods brands to small family operations producing a few thousand bottles a year." "You can't call a sparkling wine "champagne"" "unless it comes from this region in France." "The top quality..." "Premier or grand cru..." "Comes from the heart of the area with the towns of epernay and ay right in the middle." "And "rimes"... or reims..." "To the north." "Reims is a cathedral city, a bastion of elegance and tradition." "It's head office for many of the famous names and home of the union of champagne houses." "The president is ghislain de montgolfier." "He's one of the bollinger family." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "This is Maison bollinger..." ""bolly" to the English..." "The favorite tipple of king Edward vii." " Bonjour!" " Martine." "[Speaking French]" "Merci." "[Speaking French]" "D'accord." "Narrator:" "Founded in 1829, it's a classic, middle-sized champagne house with a distinguished reputation." "On the walls of the main reception are discreet royal warrants indicating that bollinger has been a champagne of choice for the British royal family for the last 125 years." "You can't buy that kind of publicity." "Jerome philippon is the managing director of bollinger." "[Speaking French]" "[Conversing in French]" "[Speaking French]" "[Speaking French]" "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "The company hired a professional archivist to dig through the family treasures and help share them with the world." "Some of bollinger's most precious items come from the mid 20th century and belonged to madame lily bollinger, one of the great ladies of champagne." "In the 1950s she ran the company and became the face of bollinger to the world." "These are photos from her triumphant tour of the United States after the second world war." "This was real in-your-face marketing." "But it was something the champagne makers had learned how to do a hundred years before." "Champagne makers have used every medium known to man to spread their message around the world." "And what's the message?" "Champagne is more than just wine;" "It's magic." "But how did they pull that off?" "[Speaking French]" "[Speaking French]" "[Birds twittering]" "Narrator:" "They've been making champagne for over 250 years." "It was once a mysterious process, a closely held secret." "How on earth did they get the bubbles to form in the wine?" "This is cramant, one of the loveliest villages southwest of epernay." "Here the diebolt family make first-class champagne from chardonnay grapes." "The reality is that wine-making..." "And, particularly, making champagne..." "Is hard work:" "24/7 for most of the 365 days in the year." "To make great wine, you have to keep the place scrupulously clean." "Isabelle diebolt takes this job personally." "She's the only one in the family who can get in the vats." "It's yeast that makes the wine, but if there's even a trace of a yeast you don't want, it'll spoil the next batch." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "Isabel's brother, arnaud, shares the work with her." "Everything except getting into the vats, that is." "Running the whole operation is Jacques diebolt," "Isabelle and arnaud's father." "He's the boss, but that doesn't mean he won't get his hands dirty." "Jacques diebolt's been making champagne for over 50 years..." "And his family for more than 100." "Okay." "Narrator:" "The final job of the day, tasting the rose, the pink champagne that'll be next to go into the bottle." "[Speaking French]" "[Speaking French]" "[Conversing in French]" "Narrator:" "One of the perks of this trade is that you can enjoy the finished product on a Friday afternoon, whether you're one of the family or a regular employee." "[Speaking French]" "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "At 7:00 P.M., martine is invited to the diebolt's for dinner." "Here, the entire family will sit down to a four-course meal..." "[Doorbell rings]" "And enjoy the fruits of the family labor." "Oh, martine!" "[Conversing in French]" "[Speaking French]" "[Speaking French]" "[Conversing in French]" "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "The day after the dinner party," "Jacques diebolt took martine to his favorite vineyard, les pimonts." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "History haunts the champagne region like a ghost at a party." "You'd think the history would be colorful and fun." "This is champagne, after all." "But that's the irony." "It's not." "No one who lives here can easily forget what happened in the past century, or indeed, in the past 2,000 years." "It's a tale of war and death on an unimaginable scale." "These hills and the surrounding plains are drenched in blood." "[Speaking French]" "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "Attila the hun swept in from the east to occupy these open plains 1,500 years ago." "He was handed his first and only defeat by the gauls and romans here." "And so it began:" "The hundred years' war, the napoleonic war, the Franco-prussian war, and worst of all, the first world war." "The scale of the slaughter was immense." "For three years, the battlefront of the marne moved to and fro over an area of less than 30 Miles at the frontier of champagne." "[Gunshots and muffled yelling]" "[Explosions]" "[Explosion]" "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "This pyramid, constructed in 1923, contains an ossuary:" "The bones of at least 10,000 unnamed soldiers are buried deep underneath." "To one side, you can still see the remains of some of the trenches." "It is dedicated to the dead of the armies of champagne." "[Intense music]" "In early April 2012, the sun disappeared from northeastern France for almost three months." "[Horn blaring]" "The champagne makers, familiar with bad weather, went to ground." "There's always work to be done in the cellars." "Christian coquilette, the father of stephane, still runs his own winery, though he's now in his 80s." "The jewel in the crown is his cellar." "He's been making champagne for more than 60 years, and much of the product is down here." "3/4 of a million bottles, more or less, all slowly maturing under the ancient 24 volt lights." "You might think that this labyrinth was something exceptional:" "Wine as far as the eye can see, stretching under several city blocks in epernay." "But it's only one of hundreds of cellars in champagne country, as historian Pierre cheval explains." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "Christian coquilette has almost half a mile of cellars." "But the bottles don't just sit here." "They need constant attention to keep the champagne clear without a trace of sediment." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "You have to ensure that the sediment ends up on the cap of the bottle so it can be removed later." "So every bottle is placed in a special rack and gently turned." "It's called remuage." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "There are 750,000 bottles here, and most of them need constant turning." "[Speaking French]" "[Whistles and claps]" "Narrator:" "In a small, locked room, in the furthest corner of the cellar are Christian's specially prized bottles, the work of a lifetime." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "Christian started when he was a boy in the 1940s and took one of his mother's wines to an international competition." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "Above ground, the weather was dreadful:" "Cold and rainy right through April and into may." "How can anyone produce decent wine in these conditions?" "Well, that's a question that has preoccupied the champenois for generations, and that's why they insist on tight control of everything in champagne." "There are rules for cellaring, rules for the harvest, rules for pruning the vines." "The rules are set by the c.V.C.:" "The corporation of champagne winemakers." "Its president is Jean-Pierre parisot." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "These aren't simply procedures;" "These are rules, and that's why you see endless rows of vines in champagne all pruned and trimmed in exactly the same way, like soldiers on parade." "There's no room for feckless, burgundy-style creativity here." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "A Sunday in early June:" "A beautiful day." "[Church bells ringing]" "In the village of avize, they're celebrating the first communion of a dozen of the local children." "It's an important moment." "They're officially growing up and welcomed into the community." "The diebolt family are catholic, though it's Jacques who really takes it seriously." "Patterns of life have changed very little in rural France since the French revolution more than 200 years ago." "Sunday is still a sacred day." "No work for most people." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "Jacques takes martine for a spin in his new s.U.V., the pride of the family..." "Well, of jacque's, certainly." "Here in champagne, Sunday or no Sunday, there's work to be done." "When the sun comes out after a long period of rain is when mildew hits the vines." "It simply doesn't matter what your plans were." "You have to cancel everything and go and see what's happening in the fields." "[Speaking French]" "[Tractor rumbling]" "Narrator:" "Bad summers demand extreme measures." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "Morning, noon, and night, all through the summer of 2012, the winemakers had to treat the vines." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "The entire crop is at risk, and no tool in the toolbox is left unused." "At the end of 2012, the champagne makers finally decided that crop dusting from the air was a step too far." "It's too hard to control." "There'll be no more helicopters spraying the vines of champagne in the future." "[Conversing in French]" "Narrator:" "But the problems don't magically disappear." "Arnaud and Isabelle diebolt need to inspect every single vine they own to check for bugs and stop the rot from starting." "[Conversing in French]" "Narrator:" "The same problems are facing all the champagne makers." "Maison gosset is a highly respected house based in the heart of epernay." "It's deputy director is odilon de varine bohan." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "Maison gosset is a negociant, meaning it doesn't own any vines." "It buys grapes from local growers." "Gosset's chief winemaker is Jean-Pierre maraigner." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "It's the 20th of June, a midsummer's Eve, another day of sunshine in epernay." "[Low thrum of conversation]" "Sumptuous meals are being planned all over town." "It's party time." "The gonet-medevilles have a house on the Avenue de champagne, the best address in epernay." "Xavier gonet's 40th birthday party is being set up." "He had his balloon ride this morning, and now there'll be more champagne." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "Bouchon is the family dog." "Bouchon means "cork,"" "and he's certainly seen a few of those being popped in this house." "Old friends are here to share some of the very best wines the gonet family has produced over the last 40 years." "When Xavier's wife, Julia, arrived from Bordeaux, she was astonished by how much they enjoy their wine here." "[Speaking French]" "[Upbeat, jazzy music]" "[speaking French]" "[Speaking French]" "[Conversing in French]" "Narrator:" "Soon enough, the sun disappeared again." "There was no end to the bad weather." "[Lightning crackling]" "When martine went to see the coquilettes, stephane was not optimistic." "[Speaking French]" "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "At the diebolts', work starts before dawn." "Isabelle will be in charge of the grape picking, and her brother, arnaud, will run things back at the winery." "There's a hurry because this is the first day they're allowed to pick at cramant under the harvest rules." "It's good weather, and you don't want to waste it." "Most of the grape pickers are from Turkey or Algeria and some from much further South in Africa." "[Speaking French]" "[Speaking French]" "[Conversing in French]" "[Phone rings]" "Narrator:" "They have less than a week to pick everything in the cramant area." "Each village is given dates to start and dates to stop so that no one can gain a special advantage:" "More rules." "In champagne, the more you pick, the more you earn..." "Unless, that is, you're part of the family." "At harvest time, the gonet-medevilles bring their children across from Bordeaux where they go to school so they can be part of the action, at least for one weekend." "[Speaking French]" "[Speaking French]" "[Speaking French]" "[Conversing in French]" "Narrator:" "So far in the process, winemaking in champagne is much like making wine anywhere else but with more rules." "But now it's time to crush the grapes, and this is where things get very different." "At the coquilettes, they put together a traditional champagne press." "Christian coquilette is in charge of weighing the grapes." "This is crucial." "You are required by law to know the exact weight." "The rules insist that 100 pounds of grapes must produce only 8 gallons of juice if you want to call that juice champagne one day." "There's plenty to figure out." "A traditional champagne press holds almost 9,000 pounds of grapes, so you're only allowed to squeeze out a little over 700 gallons..." "And that must be done very, very gently." "Christian coquilette's son, stephane, knows that the enemy of good wine is haste." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "But in champagne, of course, the process is more complicated than that." "There are officially three grades of juice." "The first juice that's squeezed from the grapes will be clearest and most delicate." "It's called the vin de cuvee, and it runs into its own special tank." "Once that tank is full, the winemaker must channel the remaining juice into a second tank." "This is officially considered good, but not quite so good, and it'll mature in a different vat." "Now they're allowed to rake up the grapes and give them a second crush." "But again, there are rules." "They're only permitted to get 176 gallons from this pressing." "The coquilettes don't think much of this second crushed juice." "They sell it to the big champagne houses, and they use it in their less expensive brands." "And what happens to the cake that remains?" "There's still juice in it, but you're not allowed to use it to make champagne." "It's shipped off to make industrial alcohol." "Stephane's winery is just up the road from his father's." "It's larger and more modern..." "More of a small factory..." "But the crushing is just as delicate." "There aren't too many grapes this year, but the best of them are really good." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "At Maison gosset in epernay, life at this stage of the winemaking is much simpler." "They don't have any crushers because they don't own any vines." "They receive freshly crushed grape juice from their suppliers all across the champagne region." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "The first job is to check what's in the truck:" "Grape variety and provenance." "Then they check sugar content, acidity... all the details." "Finally, it's just a question of getting the juice into refrigerated vats as soon as possible." "New trucks arrive at gosset every five minutes at the height of the harvest." "The trick is to know which juice is which and where it's going in this maze of vats." "It's a race against time to get the juice into the vats because it's already fermenting." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "Across the river in ambonnay, it's the very last day you're permitted to pick the grapes." "Xavier gonet has waited as late as possible to get his Pinot noirs ripe." "Now he has to turn out with the faithful bouchon, no matter what the conditions." "[Rain pattering]" "[Speaking French]" "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "It's just turned 9:00 in the morning, but it could be 9:00 at night." "The incessant rain is turning the fields into a mud bath reminiscent of the trenches in world war I." "At bollinger, we're in a different world." "Everything's under control in the main winery." "They may have a quaint barrel-maker working away at the old house, but here, virtually everything is automated." "[Clattering and squeaking]" "The entire crushing operation at bollinger is run by one man from a central control room." "Giant computerized crushers handle even the most exceptional grapes." "The juice will be allowed to stand for up to a day to allow any sediment to settle, and then that's it for the harvest of 2012 at bollinger." "[Cork popping]" "[Cheers and laughter]" "At the diebolt's, there's a modest end-of-harvest celebration called le cochelet." "Tonight is the first time that arnaud's 16-year-old daughter philippine has ever opened a Magnum." "[Speaking French]" "[Cheers and applause]" "[Speaking French]" "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "This is cherkley court near London." "Once a refuge for Winston Churchill in world war ii, the house is now a country club, and tonight, the champagne makers are presenting their wines to British customers." "So it's a blend between ambonnay and le mesnil-sur-oger, two famous village in champagne." "One is one of the best for chardonnay, le mesnil-sur-oger;" "And the other one is one of the best for Pinot noir." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "But it wasn't just English technology that shaped champagne;" "It was English taste." "[Speaking French]" "I thought this evening we would end with bollinger LA Grande annee rose 2004." "And, for me, this is madame bollinger's little gift from heaven 'cause I think it's absolutely divine." "It's something very, very special." "You'll see a very sort of gentle sort of salmon pink color..." "And it just goes wonderfully with cheese." "It's just... the acidity..." "The acidity of the cut fruit..." "It's a wonderful marriage, so I can thoroughly recommend it." "Very drinkable." "That's my favorite." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "But how do you create that consistency of taste year in, year out?" "During the winter, champagne makers select the mix of wines which will go into the various non-vintage brands they offer." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "Blending is the secret to success." "The diebolts grow their own grapes, but the ratio of Pinot noir to Pinot meunier or to chardonnay, or the mix between one vineyard and another is their decision." "The question is, how do they decide?" "[Speaking French]" "[Speaking French]" "[Speaking French]" "[Conversing in French]" "Narrator:" "Across the river in the town of ay is Maison gosset's laboratory." "Winemaker and chief sorcerer Jean-Pierre maraigner is preparing one of his blends." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "The rules say you can use wines from three different years to make a blend." "If you've just had a bad harvest, that's really helpful to maintain quality and a similar house style." "So great is the number of gosset's suppliers and their many, many vineyards that this gives Jean-Pierre a choice of more than 200 wines that he could add to the mixture." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "Once the wine is blended, you have to add two things to create the bubbles:" "A little more yeast and a touch more sugar and wine." "The mixture will be just potent enough to provoke a second fermentation in the bottle..." "But not too potent or else the bottles will explode." "Now the wine is bottled with the extra yeast and sugar, and the creation of champagne begins." "Inside each of these bottles, the bubbles are forming." "But champagne mustn't only sparkle;" "It must be clear..." "Not a trace of sediment." "That's why the bottles have to be gently turned for a whole year." "You can turn 100,000 bottles a day..." "And then the final bit of magic." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "Almost ready:" "Cork, muzzle, everything." "[Speaking French]" "Narrator:" "It takes at least a year of waiting for the bubbles to be perfect, and then one day, there'll be a special event, and it'll be time once more to order champagne." "[Corks popping]" "[Speaking French]" "[Speaking French]" "[Speaking French]"