A single drop of sweat slowly makes its way down my back as I stand in Gare de l’Est train station, looking at a departures board that announces my passage to Reims is delayed by 40 minutes. It’s a suffocating 45 degrees celsius outside, possibly more inside this greenhouse of a train station, and I’ve just spent five hours on the Eurostar after it was held en route thanks to a fire next to the tracks.
This is the harsh reality of climate change. Our world is burning, and it’s taking us down with it. Basic infrastructure ceases to function in extreme temperatures, deaths rise, destruction to property increases and I, as an individual, turn into a sweaty mess who can hardly keep control of her own thoughts, let alone navigate a foreign train station in a country where I speak a rudimentary level of the language.
The rising temperatures all around the globe are a catastrophic issue and it’s inexorably down to us, as humans, to work to reverse things. Each industry has its responsibility on both a micro and a macro level, and while there are certainly areas that could do with massive and immediate reform (here’s looking at you, fossil fuels…), every little bit truly does help.
Biodiversity in the vineyard is crucial for sustainable practices
Biodiversity in the vineyard is crucial for sustainable practices
It’s fitting, then, that my sweltering journey to the village of Damery in Champagne was to pay a visit to Champagne Telmont, purportedly the iconic wine region’s most sustainable producer. This is not simply greenwashing or a marketing technique (although I’m sure the investment of big-name eco-warrior Leonardo DiCaprio doesn’t hurt) – it is, as I discovered over my 24 hours with the Telmont team, a genuine passion.
But I’m getting ahead of myself – so back to the sweating it is. Once we finally board our train to Reims and trundle off to our hotel more than 12 hours after I left my flat in London, the temperature has barely abated. In fact, it takes until midnight for it to eventually be cool enough for us to wander around, check out the cathedral in Reims and, crucially, toast to finally making it to the French countryside with a crisp glass of Telmont Réserve Brut. And it’s a good drop too: its delicate effervescence opens up the palate rather than over-powering it, and there’s a note of stone fruit that gives way to a subtle minerality, something that’s a hallmark of its style. It tastes especially good in the sticky late-night air, just the briefest whisper of wind breaking up the relentless heat.
With perhaps one too many of those late-night glasses of Brut lingering at the back of my head (but not as much as I might expect – a testament to the quality of the bubbly), we headed out bright and early to make the pilgrimage to the Telmont estate in Damery. It’s a rambling drive, firstly through barren French motorways and semi-industrial parks, before hints of modern life give way to rolling, vine-dotted hills and picturesque towns defined by their connection to the wine industry. The heat may have broken slightly, but the day is heavy with the suggestion of rain, fulfilling its promise just as we roll through the forest green gates of Maison Telmont.
Burning sun one day, torrential rain the next: it seems like a caricature of the climate we can expect in the future should the planet continue on its current trajectory
Burning sun one day, torrential rain the next: it seems like a caricature of the climate we can expect in the future should the planet continue on its current trajectory. Almost as if the Earth is trying to drive home how important companies committed to sustainability really are. It would be funny if it wasn’t so desperately scary. This being the second time the weather interrupts our trip, we have to adapt a little, from a tour of the vines to a tour of the cellars and a little intro to the vines in front of the house – umbrellas in hand. As per the rules of the appellation, Telmont crafts its wines from chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier grapes, and head of viticulture Bertrand Lhôpital gives us an in-depth overview of each vine – but it’s his comments on the changing face of winemaking that really stick. “We used to harvest at the end of September,” he tells us. “Now we harvest at the start of September and the liquid tends to have around 2% higher alcohol.” That’s almost an entire month’s difference in just a few years.
For the uninitiated, the connection between heat and wine output is strong. Generally, the higher the temperatures when grapes are growing, the faster they ripen. The riper the grapes, the higher the sugar content and therefore the higher the alcohol levels after fermentation. Rain is, of course, needed to produce full, healthy grapes – dry summers tend to mean a smaller amount of juice and larger seeds, making the crop harder to maintain. On the flip side, too much rain lowers the acidity in the grapes and increases the possibility of them rotting. It quickly becomes evident that climate change is a potential disaster for an industry so closely tied to agriculture and so wildly at the whims of the fickle beast that is Mother Nature. Thus, the need to protect her is higher than ever.
“I wanted to make the most sustainable champagne house. But no compromise – no greenwashing,” says Ludovic du Plessis, president of Champagne Telmont, when we sit down to do a tasting later in the day. And they’re hardly empty words. Du Plessis is keen to emphasise that the house is on a journey – and one that they’re constantly working on. But it was Lhôpital’s work already trying to improve the sustainability credentials of the vineyard that encouraged him to purchase Telmont in the first place.
Built in 1968, the Telmont cave du vins contains decades-old bottles, embalmed in dust
Built in 1968, the Telmont cave du vins contains decades-old bottles, embalmed in dust
In 2007, he began transforming the vines that had been planted by his family four generations earlier to adhere to organic principles, something that was finally recognised a decade later when, in 2017, they received their first organic certification for certain sections of the vineyard. It was this work that attracted Du Plessis to Telmont, and ultimately sealed the deal for him to become a majority shareholder through French drinks conglomerate Rémy Cointreau, providing the kind of investment needed to accelerate and continue Lhôpital’s efforts.
Just two years after the pair joined forces, the progress Telmont has made is huge: 49% of the house’s cultivated areas (both within the estate and in partner sourcing areas) are certified organic or on their way to being so, with this number rising to 72% if you just look at the estate-owned plots. They’re in the process of revolutionising their packaging, cutting out clear bottles – as they don’t use any recyclable materials – and gift boxes, and designing labels that are clear and up-front about what you’re drinking. In 2021, the maison launched its first fully certified organic cuvée: Réserve de la Terre.
But it’s their plans for the future that are perhaps the most ambitious. The Telmont team hope that by 2025 100% of the estate’s vines will be certified organic, with 100% of their winegrower partners following by 2031. They’re currently trialling bottles that weigh 800g rather than the standard 900g (they’ve already managed to reduce these to 835g). This in particular is a key feature of the product given that an enormous amount of the industry’s carbon emissions come from the manufacture and transportation of glass. They’re currently using entirely renewable energy sources and are looking into ways to become self-sustaining on the energy front, but Lhôpital talks about the usual barriers that most people face: sourcing, reliability and viability due to lack of space.
Wandering through the chilly, subterranean tunnels of Telmont’s cave du vin, dodging low-hanging spider webs and row upon row of towering piles of bottles, the sheer scale and history of Telmont’s production really makes itself known
Switching any business to doing the best it can for the planet is hardly an easy feat, let alone one that has more than a century of family legacy within an industry that is generally resistant to change. In particular, the champagne industry is one that’s historically been built from exclusivity, prestige and a general idea of heritage. In that sense, these ideas often don’t tend to translate too well to genuine progression, something that is integral to moving an industry based around agriculture forward in a way that’s legitimately environmentally friendly. This makes what Telmont is undertaking all the more impressive:
not simply going against the grain, but doing so in the hopes of encouraging the rest of the industry to follow suit.
Wandering through the chilly, subterranean tunnels of Telmont’s cave du vin, dodging low-hanging spider webs and row upon row of towering piles of bottles, the sheer scale and history of Telmont’s production really makes itself known. An inscription in the wall reads 1968, forever memorialising the year Lhôpital’s grandfather built the cellar in its new home (until then, they had been located in the centre of Damery). We walk past bottles embalmed with dust, a sign checking the liquid inside to the 1969 vintage – just one year after Champagne Telmont moved to its current location at the base of the vines on the fringes of Damery village.
This enormity is mirrored above ground. A break in the rain means we can take a quick sojourn into the vines that spread for as far as the eye can see along the hills behind the home of Telmont. It’s almost astonishing to think how long this land has been cultivating grapes to be pressed and aged and bottled by Lhôpital and his ancestors. There is a lot to be said about organic and natural winemaking, but at its most simple form this style is informed by the past, bringing the process back to its original form. Chemical assistance, heavy machinery and disruptive processes are all modern inventions, and have had a swift and thorough impact on the industry and environment. Back in 1912, when Telmont was formed, making champagne was a process that was intrinsically connected to the land, and involved little to no chemical and mechanical intervention. These days, ‘low intervention’ is a buzzword, synonymous with unique, cloudy, ‘natural’ wines. But, for much of history, it is simply how wine was made.
From grape to glass: the product of Telmont's hard work
From grape to glass: the product of Telmont's hard work
This is perhaps what feels most crucial about modern day Champagne Telmont – it’s difficult not to see a connection between the house of the present day and the way things would have been done by the family more than a century ago, when the original maison was founded. It was a time that happened to coincide with the infamous Champagne Riots, when angry grape growers from the region protested against the perceived weakening of the prestige, distinction and quality of the champagne product. A perfect storm, spurred on by champagne houses purchasing cheap wine from other regions and illegally fixing prices to keep the cost of grapes low, created an outburst of anger that manifested itself in activity including rioting, fires and the looting and hijacking of incoming deliveries of négociant winemakers. Henri Lhôpital gained notoriety around this time after composing the song ‘Gloire au Champagne’, which urged growers to uphold the high standards of champagne production. The riots themselves encouraged Lhôpital to open his own champagne house, and so the first incarnation of Telmont was born.
In direct contrast with the ideas around its consumption, the making of champagne has always been a deeply physical, difficult process – but particularly back in 1912 when Lhôpital opened Telmont. It required hours on end in the fields, cultivating vines and harvesting grapes, and immense energy pressing them and bottling the liquid. Modern inventions have made this process quicker and easier, but it can still be back-breaking work at times. To open your own champagne house at a time when the future of the wine’s production was so uncertain takes serious gumption and drive – something that seems to have made its way along the Lhôpital family tree.
Looking at the Champagne Telmont of the present day, it seems fitting that the house was built during a time of unrest and riots, by a man with a deep passion for the incredible production of the area and a love of hard work. These are values that seem to have been carved into the bones of the Telmont enterprise, and are coming in handy as the house undergoes a serious evolution, almost like its own personal period of unrest.
Not that there seem to be any major teething issues throughout this metamorphosis – Telmont is smoothly transforming into an esteemed, well-renowned champagne that just so happens to be working in harmony with the environment around it. Perhaps if more champagne houses followed their lead, we could work to reverse the damage that has changed the face of grape growing and lead to my trip to the region being so tumultuous. Climate change itself will not be fixed by one plucky maison, but you only need to look to its origins to see that it only takes one to start a revolution…
