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 French President Jacques Chirac
The award winning photo journalist, Nick Danziger, travelled to the Nyetimber Estate in East Sussex to taste the sparkling wine.
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Nick Danziger has been exploring the relationship between Britain and France in the anniversary year of the Entente Cordiale. In this collection of photographs he travelled to the south of England听in search of the sparkling wine being produced at the Nyetimber Estate in East Sussex.听
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Read on and tell me where you think you are. Imagine gentle south-facing slopes of fertile soil planted with vines producing Pinot Noir, Pinot Meuier and Chardonnay. Have you guessed? A further clue: In the background Jean Manuel Jacquinot, French oenologist is predicting a bumper harvest? Surely you must have now guessed where we are? If not, here's one last clue: Nicole has just collected a pair of s茅cateurs, she is from Normandy and for several years now she comes to this vineyard as a seasonal picker. The answer, the Nyetimber Estate in East Sussex. You could have been forgiven for thinking you were in the Burgundy or Champagne regions of France.
In fact geologically the South Downs reach down under the Channel and come up again as the chalk slopes of the Cote des Blancs in Champagne, and in blind tests some French people have preferred Nyetimber's sparkling wine over their own nationally produced vintage.
This year's harvest was distinctly Anglais even if Nicole brought her French dry sense of humour to the vineyard. The hardy locals came dressed for the heavy showers that quickly turned the soil in to a layer of mud. Rather than the young men and women that turn to the French vineyards as an alternative to high unemployment in France, the mainly British pickers were more often than not retired. The gentile pace and collapsible stools reflected yet another cultural difference. Even in a gale, the local pickers were out in force to share jokes and drink steaming cups of milk tea with sliced white bread sandwiches - to have a good time and to work at their own pace.
Even if Nyetimber's winemaking is overseen by a Frenchman, times are definitely changing - it is not just excellent champagne that is produced 'overseas' - Jesus Bartolome from Salamanca, one of this year's pickers, has come to the East Sussex from Spain to do a wine studies course at Plumpton College near Lewes.
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