Champagne Academy Celebrates 60 Years

The Champagne Academy celebrated its 60th anniversary at a dinner at The Lanesborough Hotel in London and launched the 2016 programme of its annual Champagne Academy Course trip to Champagne in June.

As in all previous years, the 2016 trip will provide a unique and in-depth Champagne education experience, including lectures by the Principals and winemakers of Grande Marque Champagne Houses, visits to their vineyards, press houses, cellars and bottling plants and an unrivalled range of tutored tastings.

Alongside delivering unforgettable experiences, education is very much the focus of the course and candidates sit daily tests and a final exam, on successful completion of which they are awarded the prestigious Champagne Academy Diploma and invited to join The Champagne Academy.

The Champagne Academy was established in 1956 in recognition of the UK and Ireland as key markets for Champagne and to encourage the appreciation of Grandes Marques Champagnes within the wine trades in these countries. Its prime objective is to educate members of the trade who would not otherwise be able to study Champagne in depth.

The organisation is a gathering of top flight Champagne Houses, co-operating in a unique way to put Grandes Marques Champagnes and the region first, before the interests of individual Houses. The 16 participating Houses are: Bollinger, Charles Heidsieck, Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin, Heidsieck Monopole, Krug, Lanson, Laurent Perrier, Moët & Chandon, GH Mumm & Co, Perrier-Jouët, Piper Heidsieck, Pommery, Pol Roger, Louis Roederer, Ruinart and Taittinger.

Each year 16 people working in the UK and Ireland wine trades are nominated as candidates for the Champagne Academy Course in Champagne by the participating Houses. Then the sixteen Houses jointly host and entertain the candidates during their stay, giving them the opportunity to meet the families and other key personnel of the Member Houses.

Philip Amps is Chairman of The Champagne Academy this year and comments “Since its beginning in 1956, the Champagne Academy has given hundreds of dynamic members of the UK and Ireland wine trades an unforgettable experience that stays with them for the rest of their lives and that can have a real impact on their careers. I am making it my mission, in the Academy’s 60th year, to spread the word about how special and prestigious it is to be selected as a candidate. Everyone who works in the industry should aspire to attend the Champagne Academy Course.”

2015 Champagne Academy Course graduate, Chris Rogers of Enotria Coe, says: “The Champagne Academy Course was a unique experience, getting privileged, behind the scenes access that few people will ever enjoy. To give just one example, drinking Krug Clos du Mesnil actually in Clos du Mesnil, is something that I will never forget.”

The names of the 2016 Champagne Academy Course candidates are due to be revealed later this month.

UK wine trade members who are interested in applying to attend the Champagne Academy Course in 2017 should contact Val Simpson at The Champagne Academy on: champagneacademy@yahoo.co.uk

www.champagneacademy.co.uk

Photo credit: Mark Fagan Aperture-Priority.com
Chairman of The Champagne Academy Philip Amps with 7 of the Academicians who successfully completed the 2015 Champagne Academy Course.