A Year in Champagne
“They definitely knew the night they invented champagne/that all we’d want to do/is fly off to the sky on champagne.” So sang “Gigi.” Nice thought, I suppose some vintners wish it took only one night. One can only imagine the nights and days and years of trying this that and the other thing it took to come up with exactly the right way to make, legally speaking, the only sparkling wine in the world that can be called champagne.
For just as only whiskey made in Scotland can be called “Scotch whiskey” so may only sparkling wines made in Champagne a relatively narrow strip of a not exactly enormous country be called Champagne. This explains why, among other seeming mysteries of process and designation (such as why those bubbles come to animate a beverage which is not carbonated), and many others besides, are answered by this briskly entertaining film directed by David Kennard, who last year addressed red-wine concerns with his documentary “A Year In Burgundy.”
The movie opens with an aerial view of a field of grapes; this is from a hot-air balloon ride taken to celebrate Xavier Gonet’s 40th birthday. Gonet seems like a genial enough fellow even as he describes what riding in a balloon did for him: “We were like gods looking down on our subjects. It was fun.” Sure thing.
The style of the written prose narration is unfortunately somewhat pedestrian but it’s packed with information did you know that underneath topsoil in fields where champagne grapes are grown there is mostly chalk? weird! and has some interesting content to share; despite its obvious finitude it turns out that “Champagne is an industry with a massive global market to defend,” partly at least because of its mythic standing among celebratory intoxicants.
Interspersed as well with detailed descriptions of arcane practices involved with its manufacture (it takes a really dedicated winemaker to look after the bottle-revolving process that rids the liquid of its sediment) and chronicles of the tragic, war wracked regions that gave birth to the quaff, this movie’s got stuff. And the views it offers on both the French countryside and pleasant villages whose populaces seem refreshingly tied to the land rather than their digital devices are worth checking out for any viewer in need of a kind of cinematic vacation.
But Kennard is also pretty devoted to his commonplaces; dotting his soundtrack with snippets of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and Strauss’s “Blue Danube” waltz is easy. It might have been nice also, when he was taking such great pains to lay out all those arcane rules about Champagne making (100 pounds of grapes must yield only eight ounces of juice, holey moley), if he had shown somewhat more engagement between labor relations among the very nice well off families who own and run these vineyards and some representative from among those who actually pick these god damned things every year.
I’m not saying there has got to be a scandal being ignored here; I’m just saying it would be nice to hear from someone who doesn’t get to look down on them like a god.
It is expected that we look at the grandchildren of the wealthy who drive sports cars and pick grapes as a hobby at least once in a while because it’s adorable, even if they’re working just for fun. However, their point of view isn’t shown; we never talk about the people who actually have to do this labor-intensive task. I hope they get a few bottles on the house.
That being said, this job is clearly stressful on the mind. There are so many things that can go wrong with it things over which no vintner, no matter how complacent or self-satisfied, has control that one must admire the tenacity and skill of Champagne makers. After all, bathtub gin will get you just as drunk if not drunker. The Champagne experience is unique and this film may give you an understanding of why without having to drink any of it yourself.
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