This class is intended for Champagne devotees, and anyone ready to stop choosing Champagne based on the name they know and start choosing based on the style in the bottle.
Champagne houses fall along a spectrum, and where a producer sits on it shapes everything about the wine in the glass. On one end, the oxidative style built around time in oak, deeper color, nutty complexity, and richer texture. On the other, the reductive style built around stainless steel, protection from air, bright citrus, flinty minerality, and tension. Most houses settle somewhere along the line, and once you can hear the difference, you can walk into a Champagne shelf and head straight for the producers who match your palate.
This masterclass works through the spectrum pour by pour. We taste benchmark examples of each approach, cover the winemaking decisions that drive the style (vessel choice, lees contact, dosage, malolactic conversion), and give you the vocabulary to describe what you are drinking in a way that actually leads somewhere. By the end, you will know which house styles call to you, which producers consistently deliver that style, and how to shop a Champagne list without defaulting to the names you already know.