Churchill's Bubbly Flirt With French Beauty

With David Ellis

While it may make for a good trivia quiz question, why would you spend $7,000,000 trying to find out how many bubbles there are in a bottle of Champagne?

But a French Champagne house and a Dutch brewery once did just, employing a French scientist to come up with a figure of 250-million of the sparkling little critters. It took him three years.

And in America a scientist there using a highly convoluted system based on the amount of CO2 gas in a bottle that creates the bubbles, and the volume of an average Champagne bubble as calculated by an “optical comparator,” came up with more like 49-million to the bottle.

At the same time, he figured the “average” bubble in a bottle of Champers measured 69-millionths of a ml, or 4.2-millionths of a cubic inch.

And someone else “calculated” it was 56-million bubbles, so it’ll probably remain one of Life’s Little Mysteries.

But whatever it is, we do know that amongst the first things British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill did when he returned to No 10 Downing Street in 1951 after six years in the political wilderness, was to order a stock-take of the bottles of bubbles in his No 10 cellars, in particular his favourite tipple, Pol Roger.

When he found there was none, Churchill rang his friend Mme Odette Pol Roger in Epernay, and ordered a couple of cases of the stuff post-haste. And that was before he’d even held his first Cabinet Meeting.

Later in reply to a newspaper reporter who suggested this could be post-election indulgence, Churchill replied: “I cannot live without Champagne. It imparts a feeling of exhilaration. The nerves are braced, the imagination is equally stirred, the wits become more nimble. “And besides,” he added, pinching the words of Napoleon: “In victory I deserve it; in defeat I need it.”)

The Pol Roger Champagne story began in 1849 with first vintages of the stuff enjoying an enthusiastic following; today the company is one of the few remaining grande marque Champagne houses still in the hands of its founder’s successors, and is still run from the 19th century family mansion in Epernay.

Although he’d been taking a glass or six of Pol Roger Champagne for years, it was not until 1944 that Churchill finally met Jacques and Odette Pol Roger in Paris. He was swept away by her beauty during their luncheon meeting, her tales as a bicycle courier for the French Resistance, and the fact she had an English flower garden and wore an RAF badge.

And not least, that she had access to 7km of tunnels dug into the chalky grounds of Epernay, and which were filled with millions of bottles of the stuff. (Which on any of the above calculations was a lot of bubbles.)

Odette was dutifully impressed with Churchill’s flirtatious attention, remarking that she “was conquered by his thoughtfulness, his courtesy and his good manners.”

Churchill named one of his race horses Pol Roger, and Odette sent him shipments of his favourite vintages including the esteemed 1944. When that ran out, she freighted over a few cases of the 1947 to ease Churcill’s misery in political opposition in immediate-post-war England.

He wrote back: “The 1944 was the greatest Champagne ever made... the 1947 is the greatest post-war Champagne I’ve ever drunk!”  And again when questioned by the Press about this propensity for French bubbly, he replied: “My tastes are simple, I am easily satisfied with the best.”

Pol Roger seized on the quote and used it in its post-war advertisements.

When Sir Winston died in 1965, the Pol Roger family added a black stripe to labels on their export bottles to Britain. And in 1984 they launched a Sir Winston Churchill Cuvee, made only in the best years from the best fruit from the best vineyards.

A bottle of the still-available 1998 Sir Winston Churchill will set you back around $300.

But as the French say, forget the price for there are two good reasons to drink Champagne: When you are happy, and when you are not.

You can join organised tours of the Pol Roger cellars – once described by Churchill as “the world’s most drinkable address” – at 1 Rue Henri Lelarge, Epernay, and open daily.

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