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Kaaren Palmer

is a multi-award winning author and educator
on the subject of her passion – Champagne.

Dame-Chevalier

Ordre des Coteaux de Champagne

Gourmand International

Food and Wine Book Awards
Winner Best French Wine Book 2016
Winner Best of the Best
Gourmand International
World Cookbook Awards 25 Years

To read Kaaren Palmer’s full biography
please click here

web site last updated February 22 2024

CHAMPAGNE NEWS FEBRUARY-MARCH 2024

This newsletter traverses Europe and lands in Australia with all the latest in the fabulous world of Champagne…click here to read Kaaren Palmer’s February-March 2024 newsletter.
PUBLISHED DECEMBER 5 2023 KAAREN PALMER

CHAMPAGNE NEWS DECEMBER 2023

The very best Champagne buys for Christmas and so much more news from Champagne…click here to read Kaaren Palmer’s December 23 newsletter.
PUBLISHED DECEMBER 5 2023 KAAREN PALMER

CHAMPAGNE NEWS SEPTEMBER – OCTOBER 2023

The harvest issue and much more including top buys for vintage Champagne…click here to read Kaaren Palmer’s September – October newsletter.
PUBLISHED JULY 26 2023 KAAREN PALMER

CHAMPAGNE NEWS JULY – AUGUST 2023

Always a lot happening in the world of Champagne…click here to read Kaaren Palmer’s July – August newsletter. The world’s most favourite Champagne houses and this month’s best buys.

PUBLISHED JULY 26 2023 KAAREN PALMER

CHAMPAGNE STUDIES

Interested in studying champagne click here to see the currently available study options.
PUBLISHED JUNE 26 2023 KAAREN PALMER

THREE DAYS IN REIMS

A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO THE FABULOUS REGION OF CHAMPAGNE AND REIMS

If you’ve been thoroughly bitten by the champagne bug, you’ll enjoy three or more days in Reims with a list of ‘musts’ from a city where many sites are inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Make sure that you book – even at wine bars read on

PUBLISHED JUNE 14 2023 KAAREN PALMER

ONLY A DAY IN CHAMPAGNE?

 

It’s possible – if you prune the suggestions. Tasting champagne at Champagne Houses along the rightly famed Avenue de Champagne, at bars run by individual growers or groups, and building up a thirst at the Museum of Champagne and Regional Archaeology, are among the highlights……read on.

REVISED AND REVISITED MAY 7 2023…KAAREN PALMER

GREETINGS FROM REIMS

Snow on the Montagne de Reims last Thursday, cold and windy, wearing all my warm clothes – even the Remois are saying that temperatures haven’t been this cold for some years, perhaps since childhood. Certainly, it’s never been as chilly in all the many times that I’ve been here in April.

Printemps Des Champagnes, the annual grower event, is back with all the old attendees from the global champagne industry and a very healthy batch of younger new ones. There are now 27 groups exhibiting still wines and finished champagnes over the four days. It is physically impossible to manage to visit everybody in that time, let alone taste a few still wines and a further few champagnes from each. The Terres et Vins group was inconveniently situated in Épernay, in a cold, poorly lit cellar under the excellent new museum of champagne wine and archaeology in Chateau Perrier, on the Ave de Champagne. Add the logistics of travelling Reims–Épernay–Reims on the busiest day of Printemps, and you’ll understand the hard work it requires. But one feels compelled to make the effort to ’take the temperature’ of some of the very best growers in the inaugural group of 2009. 

The best events were those with a limit on the number of attendees in comfortable well-lit rooms such as in the beautiful Town Hall in Reims, the restaurant area of Les Crayères, and the function room of the smart new hotel, La Caserne de Chanzy near the cathedral. The Cercle Colbert is also a good location for a smaller number of exhibitors, likewise the circus of Le Manège.

It was quite blissful during Printemps to sit down at a table for a couple of the excellent masterclasses, and following Printemps, to be (almost) alone visiting a couple of the small maisons.

There will be a full report in my next newsletter.

Kaaren Palmer
26 April 2023

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Les Mains de Terroir, at the Town Hall in Reims, 
where houses showed their still wines and finished champagnes.
Worksheets

Worksheets, so very important for structuring your own tastings are available here or from the CHAMPAGNE drop down on the main navigation.