(Decanter) - Champagne and World War One:

Champagne lost people, vineyards, buildings and markets as a result of vicious fighting during World War One.

Don and Petie Kladstrup, writing in their book Champagne, described World War One as Champagne’s ‘darkest hour’.

They wrote, ‘of all the terrible moments in Champagne’s long history, none was more catastrophic than World War One.’

Champagne quickly found itself on the frontline between the German and Allied armies in autumn 1914 and was thereafter at the centre of the bloody war of attrition that continued for another four years.

Reims cathedral was among the first casualties after German artillery caused the building to catch fire in September 1914.

Champagne harvests during the ‘Great War’ have become famous for being predominantly handled by women and children; most of the men having been conscripted to fight.

The 1914 vintage has since been lauded as one of the 20th Century’s finest in Champagne, but the harvest was a close-run thing in many areas. An Allied offensive forced the Germans to abandon Epernay only a week before picking began, and harvesting was brought forward amid gunfire and shelling.