Weekend Cooking: A Year in Champagne (Film)

A few years ago, I reviewed David Kennard's A Year in Burgundy, which introduced us to the region's winemakers and what it takes to grow wine in that part of France.

The second documentary in Kennard's series is A Year in Champagne (2014; currently available via one of your streaming services). As in the first film, Kennard takes us to a variety of vineyards in the Champagne region, where we visit family-owned estates, big-business growers, and wine producers.

The documentary starts in April, when the vines just start budding and ends in late winter, after the winemakers have bottled their wines for the year. Although I didn't find this film as engaging as Kennard's look at Burgundy, I still enjoyed it.

As several people in A Year in Champagne note, what's a celebration without champagne? What's more, it's perfect all day long, from breakfast to past midnight. I'll start with some of the interesting things I learned:

• During the fermentation, champagne bottles need to be rotated an eighth turn every single day.
• Throughout history, the British connection--especially from the royal family--has very important to the development of champagne as a quality wine.
• There are hundreds of miles of cellars in the Champagne region.
• The Champagne growers association has an incredible amount of rules and regulations for everything from pruning the vines to exactly when the grapes can be harvested.

The Champagne region is the northernmost wine-growing region in France, and the climate can be brutal for the grapes. The documentary was filmed in 2012, which was a year of cool temperatures and little sun. Despite that, there was a harvest, and champagne was bottled.

Unlike Kennard's first film, almost all of this movie required subtitles. I don't mind subtitles, but sometimes I find myself doing more reading than looking at the images on the screen. In addition, I didn't connect as strongly with Champagne winemakers as I did with the Burgundy families.

In any case, I'm glad I watched A Year in Champagne, and I hope David Kennard continues the series, so I can learn more about wine making in France. Here is the trailer.

Note that I'll be at a lacemaking workshop all weekend, but will visit your blogs just as soon as I can.

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