Europe boasts some wonderfully picturesque lakes – I grew up near some of them in the UK’s Lake District. Less popular, were the wine lakes, milk lakes and olive oil lakes, not to mention the butter and grain mountains. These were an unintended part of the EEC’s Common Agricultural Policy, where famers produced according to quotas rather than demand. Sadly, there was never a Champagne lake, until now.

Covid-19 is to blame. All over the world people have been cancelling weddings, jollies and other celebrations, and sales of everyone’s favourite bubbly have plummeted. A billion bottles lie idle in the cellars of Champagne and the famous underground chalk ‘caves’ of the region are running out of room.

As a result, the Champagne houses are keen to reduce production – in what looks like being a vintage year – while the growers aren’t. If only they would reduce prices or create a special Covid label at a lower cost! I can’t imagine either event happening so it’s up to all of us to drink as much Champagne as we can. The French are doing their bit consuming 50% of all production. Australia is punching above its weight in fourth position. Sante!

Or should I say cheers? While the French will tell you that ‘methode champenoise’ was discovered by Dom Pierre Perignon at the Abbey of Hautvilliers in 1697, across The Channel, one Mr Christopher Merrett, scientist, physician, naturalist and metallurgist described the method in a paper to the Royal Society in 1662.

“Our wine coopers of recent times use vast quantities of sugar and molasses to all sorts of wines to make them drink brisk and sparkling and to give them spirit,” he wrote, 30 years prior to the Dom P.

Maybe that is the real reason for Brexit?

Closer to home I had the pleasure of visiting Mudgee the other day. I’d always imagined a brown, dry, desolate place well beyond the civilisation of Sydney. Instead I found fine food, plentiful wine, picturesque scenery and friendly policeman, who apologise as they breathalyse you. There was even a Lake Windamere (their spelling, not mine) although not quite as pretty as Windermere in the aforementioned Lake District. While there I gave our children and their partners a lesson in wine appreciation. It was pretty simple – find out what you like and then try and find it for as little as possible.

We started with two very different wines at two very different prices; a bottle of 2018 Martinborough Pinot Noir, $25 from Vintage Cellars, followed by a 2014 Yarra Yering Cabernet blend $100+ (a gift, thank you Mr Keane).

The Pinot was more prop forward than skilful All Black back. It announced its presence but was one dimensional. That said, while harsh it was a good example of Pinot Noir characteristics, with strawberries on the nose. The class nodded.

Next on field was Dan Carter himself. The YY was stunning. Layer upon layer of rich complexity, an explosion of intensity and the perfect introduction to what wine can be. All but one of the class agreed, which was fine. It meant there was more for the rest of us.

I had planned to follow the YY with a bottle of Peterson’s 2016 Mudgee shiraz but we were all a bit tired so I got to drink when we got home. At 15% plus it was a big, muscular wine. If we stick with the All Black metaphor this was Jonah Lomu, big and brilliant in a straight line, flattening all before it. I can see why it won its medals.

On our return we found a bottle of Riesling in the fridge, a present from the house sitter, brother to daughter’s man-friend. It was The Riesling Freak, Number 10 and I’m ashamed I didn’t know about this wine maker for the wine is excellent. Such liveliness and optimism in a bottle.

Don’t forget to stock up on Champagne.