Join in with me if you have ever:

Wanted to buy a bottle of champagne and been totally bewildered the the choice on offer.

Spent a lot of money on a supposedly great champagne and thought: "What's all the fuss about?"

Listened to a wine 'guru' telling you the champagne smells of this and tastes of that and thought to yourself "I can't smell or taste any of that. What's he talking about? I guess I'll never make a wine expert."
Thought " I just want a reasonably- priced bottle of champagne that I'll enjoy, but if it's not expensive, will it be any good? Guess I'll go for the expensive brand after all - I hope it's worth it."

Visited a restaurant, looked down the list of champagnes, read the descriptions and said to yourself, "They all sound the same to me. I'm still no wiser that when I started."

Yep, we've all been there and the thing is that we all end up choosing the familiar brand because it feels safe and if we've heard of it, it must be good... mustn't it?

Believe me, I know how you feel. In fact I was once the same

I'll never forget what it felt like looking down the champagne list and trying not to let my girlfriend or business colleagues see that I hadn't really got a clue what to order.

Or how I felt when I saw the wine waiter's look of disdain when I did finally make a choice. Some embarrassing memories to be sure.

For me though, they are nothing more than that....memories.

You see, I got the chance to live and work in the heart of the Champagne region and ended up spending almost 10 years there.

As you can imagine, I learned a lot about champagne. Almost every day I talked about champagne and tasted champagne of all styles: vintage champagne, ros� champagne and many more. I enjoyed some sumptuous meals with champagne and mixed with people who lived and breathed champagne - dozens, if not hundreds of champagne makers, from the great and the famous houses to the small family concerns; from the vineyard workers who go out in the fields in all weathers, to the cellarmen who watch over the champagne as it ages - and it was a great way, probably the best way, to learn about champagne.
I don't tell you this to impress you, but simply to let you now how much there is that I'd love to share with you.

I can tell you too, that understanding champagne and learning which one to choose, isn't that complicated, despite what you may think right now.

I'm not a wine guru and I don't have any of the traditional, professional qualifications in wine or champagne.

I hope you're not disappointed by that - I'm certainly not because traditional qualifications sometimes teach you to look at a subject in traditional ways and if you do that, you risk learning nothing new.
What I have done instead is to break down the whole process of choosing champagne and identifying which style you prefer into the essential elements that make the whole subject easy to understand.

This will open up a whole new world of champagne for your enjoyment.