What a month: the clocks spring ahead (as a result of it’s spring); 
the Hares go boxing as a part of their pairing ritual; it’s essential to maintain heads down on the ides (fifteenth), rejoice St Paddy’s on the seventeenth, line the turf accountants’ pockets throughout Cheltenham and rev up for the Duke of Richmond’s Members Assembly at Goodwood – and all as we gear up for the tip of lent and Easter celebrations of the Risen Christ on the month-end. Within the UK, March 2018 has additionally seen very worrying goings-on with the Russians that may not be misplaced in any Ian Fleming novel, nearly every day Brexit updates (some indicating the sunny uplands are nearby, others reminding us of our harmful proximity to the River Styx); the Nation has additionally needed to take care of two visits of the “Beast from the East” while bidding a tragic farewell to each Sir Ken Dodd and Stephen Hawking, amongst others, with a wave of the nationwide tickling stick; exhausting!
Winston Churchill is quoted in 1946 as reflecting that ‘I couldn’t dwell with out Champagne. In victory I deserve it. In defeat I want it’ (after Boney). It’s effectively recorded that WSC had a love (and ferocious thirst) for the cuvees of Pol Roger champagne with an estimated consumption of 42,000 bottles throughout his lifetime. There are fascinating data within the Cupboard Conflict Rooms of Churchill’s requirement for champagne through the second world battle – a lot maligned by the mandarins of the day! The home of Pol Roger do make extraordinarily nice champagnes however it isn’t identified whether or not Churchill trifled with their pink cuvees in any respect.
What we do know is that this month represents the two hundredth anniversary yr since that Grande Dame of champagne, the Widow Barbe-Nicole Clicquot (nee Ponsardin), intentionally added some nonetheless pink wine from her wonderful vineyards at Bouzy (a Grand Cru village, famed for its Pinot Noir) to her champagne mix, thereby creating the primary official rose champagne. This was her imaginative and prescient and represented a continued pattern of pioneering development throughout each manufacturing and advertising of champagne wines – and all on account of her early widowing; this should certainly make her the best poster-lady of World Ladies’s Day (additionally a March diary date).
Many champagne homes are at the moment bottling their 2017 harvest dominated blends prepared for the intensive cellar getting old and magical second fermentation. As you deliver a glass of France’s most interesting to your lips – whether or not pink, white, classic or demi-sec – do spare a thought for the journey that champagne wines have loved over time and for the people which have influenced these developments – whether or not customers like Churchill or modern producers like Madame Clicquot or Lily Bollinger.
Anybody else feeling the necessity to drink rose champagne now?
