The Champagne region, an hour's drive east of Paris, is one of France's most comfortably confident, devoted to producing one particular luxury product. The Champenois – the inhabitants of Reims, Épernay and the villages which dot the rolling countryside. It is the combination of being as far north as vines can be grown commercially in France; a high proportion of chalky soils which encourage the roots to burrow as far as a regular but by no means generous supply of water; no shortage of cool, dark, humid cellars; and a head start in the public relations game of establishing champagne as the wine of celebration and glamour that makes Champagne unique. This uniqueness has fuelled the Champenois' energetic vendetta against those who use their precious C-word to describe products other than their own. Unexpectedly for a wine that is quintessentially light and white, champagne is made from predominantly black grapes. Less than 30% of Champagne's 34,000 ha (84,000 acres) of neat, low, rows of densely planted vines are light-skinned Chardonnay, the white burgundy grape. The red burgundy grape Pinot Noir is planted on almost 40% of Champagne's infertile vineyard soils. The region's third main variety, with about a third of the vineyard, is Pinot Meunier, a fruitier, earlier-maturing relative of Pinot Noir. Only Pinot Meunier will ripen reliably throughout the region, which is why it is by far the most commonly planted variety. Pinot Noir and Chardonnay need particularly well-favoured sites and in general the Chardonnay vine thrives best on the south- and east-facing chalky slopes of the Côte des Blancs south of Épernay, while Pinot Noir grows mainly on the lower slopes of the wooded Montagne de Reims between Reims and Épernay, as well as being a speciality of the slightly warmer Aube vineyards in the far south of Champagne. Credit Jancis Robinson
