Canard-Duchêne Parcelle 181 Extra Brut NV Champagne

The history of humanity is defined by great love affairs; Romeo & Juliet (okay it's fictional), Richard & Judy (they've been a mainstay of British telly for 78 years!) and the greatest romance of all; wine & barrels. That's what makes the story of Canard-Duchêne so beautiful; the marriage of Victor Canard a cooper and Léonie Duchêne a winemaker is like a pastiche of the relationship between oak and grape juice. Victor and Léonie may have long left this mortal plane but their love affair lives on through this expressive Champagne house that brings sparkling wine and oak together.

If this Champagne is anything to go by, the relationship is working. This organic Champagne is partially vinified in oak barrels and blended from 12 hectares of organically certified and cultivated vineyards, followed by bottle aging on the lees. The resultant wine has an elegant freshness with a rounded fruit character, balanced brilliantly with a biscuity backbone.

"When a wine loves a barrel, can't keep its mind on nothing else!"
We don't know about you but were getting a bit teary-eyed...

In 1859, a cooper going by the name of Victor Canard, and Léonie Duchêne, a winegrower’s daughter, met in Ludes. After a whirlwind romance, they were married and in 1868 decided to join their family names and establish the Canard-Duchêne Champagne House. Generations to come would make Canard-Duchêne famous throughout the world. Today, Canard-Duchêne has a firm foothold in more than fifty countries, and ranks among the leading Champagne Houses, while remaining a family-run, independent company.

The Champagne house has been located in Ludes in the Montagne de Reims National Park since 1868. Its founders were granted the right by the Russian Imperial Family to adopt its coat of arms as the family emblem. The crowned two-headed eagle has thus appeared on every Canard-Duchêne label since the end of the 19th Century. The brand was an official supplier of the Tsar Nicolas the second.

This organic Champagne is partially vinified in oak barrels and blended from 12 hectares of organically certified and cultivated vineyards, including 7 hectares of ‘Parcel 181’ located in Verneuil.