Back at the hotel after day three and I think we can safely say this has been the most exciting day of the trip so far.

The visits just keep getting better, but today felt a little different.

We've been talking to Frank from Domaine Méa for about six months. Earlier in the year he sent some samples to Australia and we'd loved the wines, but one thing we've learnt over the years is that great wine isn't enough on its own.

Before we commit to working with a producer, we want to meet them.

We want to walk through the vineyards, see the winery, understand how they work and spend time with the people behind the wines. You're not just choosing a wine. You're choosing a producer and hopefully the start of a long-term relationship.

So this morning we drove out to meet Frank.

By the time we left, we'd pretty much decided we were going to import the wines.

Nothing is ever completely final until the wine is on a boat, but this is the first producer from the trip that I think we can confidently mark down as a definite yes.

That's a pretty exciting feeling.

The tasting was excellent from start to finish.

Their entry-level Champagne, Assemblage, immediately stood out. It's fresh, relatively low dosage and exactly the sort of wine I'd love to see poured by the glass in good restaurants. Serious enough for wine lovers, but approachable enough that anyone can enjoy it.

Beyond that, the range just kept getting stronger.

There was a fantastic Blanc de Blancs called Le Grain, a beautiful rosé, an impressive vintage wine and a cuvée called Signature that really stayed with me long after the tasting had finished. It's produced from two Grand Cru Pinot Noir parcels in Bouzy and was probably the wine of the day for me.

What I loved most was that every wine felt different.

There was a clear house style running through the range, but each wine had its own identity and purpose. Nothing felt like it was there just to fill out a portfolio.

The challenge now isn't whether we'll import the wines.

It's deciding which wines we can fit into the first shipment.

If everything goes to plan, we'll bring in a small pallet that should arrive in Australia towards the end of the year, hopefully just in time for Christmas.

Lunch ended up being one of my favourite parts of the day.

Frank took us to a local restaurant and after all the hospitality he'd shown us, we insisted on buying lunch. We opened a bottle of grower Champagne and spent a couple of hours talking about everything except sales.

Kids. Family. Harvest. Equipment. Running a small business.

One thing I always find interesting when meeting producers is how similar many of their challenges are to our own.

There's sometimes an assumption that everyone in Champagne is surrounded by luxury and endless money. The reality is very different.

Most of these growers are farmers.

They're saving for new presses. Planning vineyard investments. Thinking about cash flow. Worrying about weather. Making difficult decisions about where to spend money and where to hold back.

The more time you spend with small producers, the more you realise how much their world has in common with ours.

By the end of lunch it felt less like a business meeting and more like catching up with someone we'd known for years.

That's usually a pretty good sign.

The afternoon took us north to Verzenay, one of the Grand Cru villages of the Montagne de Reims.

We visited another small grower-producer whose wines were excellent. Classical, precise and beautifully made.

In fact, on most days they probably would have been the highlight.

The problem was that they had the impossible task of following what we'd experienced that morning.

That's one of the realities of trips like this. You can come across great wines every day, but there are only so many producers we can realistically work with.

Sometimes a producer simply feels right.

Today felt like one of those days.

After the final tasting we headed back into Reims, grabbed a quick beer and then went to Sacré Burger, a place that seems to come up every time you ask a local where to eat.

It's a relaxed burger restaurant with what is supposedly one of the greatest Champagne lists in the world.

Only in Champagne could a burger restaurant become famous for its wine list.

After a glass of Champagne and a much-needed dinner, we called it a night.

Tomorrow we're leaving Champagne and heading to the Loire Valley. It's an early start and a four-hour drive, but if the first three days are anything to go by, we're only just getting started.

 

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