The Champenois are no strangers to California, having in the 1980s established Domaine Chandon, Mumm Napa and Domaine Carneros in Napa Valley, Roederer Estate in Mendocino County, and the defunct Maison Deutz (now Laetitia Vineyard & Winery) in the Central Coast.
Yet who could have imagined that Frenchmen Claude Thibaut and Manuel Janisson, the latter of Champagne Janisson & Fils in Verzenay, would produce a gorgeous sparkling wine in the state of Virginia?
Thibaut, a University of Reims graduate who consulted on California sparkling wine projects for Kendall-Jackson's late Kristone brand, J Wine Co. (Judy Jordan's fizzy extension of her...