You'd never find his place in a million years if you didn't know it was there, but luckily I got to know him and his family many years ago, mainly from chatting over the garden wall. Since then we've been buying his champagne, called Pierre Deville, to serve at our B & B   www.bedandbreakfastinchampagne.com

Its been so popular that we have become Christophe's second biggest customer - ony his sister who lives in Paris and distributes to her vast circle of contacts, buys more than we do.

Anyway Christophe was in fine form and treated us to a display of dégorgement à la vollée in the garden, We then tasted the bottle, which of course had no dosage ( added sugar) at all, and this somewhat demanding taste went down really well with everyone.

You can see what I mean on the video below

Out came two more bottles from the cellars as we stood around a table in Christophe's press room just chatting and having fun. Nothing sophisticated or glamorous, just a fantastically spontaneous moment in the company of a man more than happy to share his time and champagne with us.

This is what I mean about getting to know the real 'heart'of Champagne and if you'd like to know more about my guided tours then just drop me an e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

I can't guarantee that you'll always see and do exactly what we did last Sunday, but there'll always be a lot of laughs, loads of fun, a huge amount to learn and some great memories.