“In victory I deserve it,” Winston Churchill said of champagne. “In defeat I need it.” Churchill had many existential concerns during World War II, but one of his smaller worries was that the German occupation of France had interrupted supplies of his beloved Pol Roger.
Today he could find consolation closer to home. For the past two years, the British have been able to buy a sparkling wine with a distinctly French pedigree, produced not far from Churchill’s rural home in Kent. With a little help from climate change, and a great deal from the champagne house Taittinger, the age of English champagne—except it can’t legally be called that—has dawned.