‘It wasn’t really a conscious choice to be part of a Champagne brand. Champagne Sanger invited me to come out to see its Champagne school. This was seven years ago. The students wanted to meet me, and the students are the story really. And I thought, what a lovely invite, to go to one of the oldest winemaking schools in Champagne.
‘I said to my wife – who I was dating at the time – do you want to come to Champagne? It sounded very romantic. We had this incredible, full, rich day of history, skill, sharing, and the students were really happy to see me. I learnt how to twist the bottles [riddling], and all about the cuvées and the vineyards. And we topped it off in one of the vineyards eating cheese and drinking Champagne. At the end of the day, they said “we want you to own your own cuvée”. At first I thought, you mean take a few home? I had a big trunk. And they said “no, you’ll have your own, we produce it, we have these lovely batches of grand cru, and you can name it and do what you want with it”.
‘My personal favourite is the Porte Noire vintage grand cru. Bad Champagne gives me a residual effect the next day. Finely produced Champagne doesn’t. When you realise that alcohol suppresses your nervous system, you don’t want to put any old liquid in your body! Beyond Champagne, I like a Syrah, heavy
