Mobile Distillery in Champagne

Mobile-Distillery300There are very few itinerant distillers left in Champagne these days - very few in the whole of France for that matter - but today I was lucky enough to meet one in the village of Damery.

This one is owned and operated by a M. Fontaine who turned out to be jovial and chatty and more than willing to tell me a little about his still which he travels with throughout Champagne and Alsace.

Any surplus wine that a champagne maker has that is not fit for turning into champagne can be taken to the distiller whoM-Fontaine-The-Distiller300 then, for a fee, turns it into alcohol which is returned to the wine maker who can then use it to make Ratafia ( grape juice fortified with alcohol to produce a sweet aperitif drink of about the same strength as sherry).

Of course the entire process is strictly regulated by the Customs - M. Fontaine has to account for the precise volume of wine he recieves and the volume of alcohol produced, but he also has to note the registration number of the vehicle in which the wine/ alcohol is transported by the wine maker. What's more the Customs men can come at any moment to check the records.

The still itself has seen a good few years work, but it seems to be operating perfectly. Not perhaps the most efficient and technologically advanced set-up but it's good that some of the traditional practices can survive in 21st century.

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