Champagne region of France produces its own whisky +++CLIENT REFEED++++
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FRANCE WHISKY
SOURCE: AP TELEVISION
RESTRICTIONS: HORIZONS CLIENTS ONLY
LENGTH: 4:24
1. Wide pan of Champagne vineyards
2. Wide of vineyards with windmill in background
3. Various of vineyards
4. Various of grapes
5. Wide of Guillon Distillery entrance
6. Close of gate to the Guillon Distillery
7. Wide of owner, Thierry Guillon speaking with tourists UPSOUND (English) Thierry Guillon, Distiller:
''This one is a three and a half years old, this one four and this one five years old. The product, the malt comes from the Champagne area and the water comes from here, we have our own source. So we will taste this one first, it is...woman first...
8. Close up of tourists tasting whisky UPSOUND (English) Dutch tourist:
It tastes well... it's sweet.''
9. SOUNDBITE (French) Thierry Guillon, Distiller:
''It is a product essentially made with local raw materials; the source of the region, the malt and the barley of the region, the oak barrels are from Champagne and some other regions. The aim is to make something small like a small winemaker would try to make a quality product. I am the first in a long family tradition, I hope, to make whisky, and as I am the first one the difficulty is to make enough stock to evaluate the results and increase quality with the years.
10. Wide of Guillon Distillery
11. SOUNDBITE (French) Thierry Guillon, Distiller:
''We export so far to Belgium, Germany, Denmark and we have some contacts in Spain and the next big market is China. I was there in September last year and we tried to make some contacts there because of the growth of the market.''
12. Various of whisky vats
13. Thierry picking up handful of barley
14. SOUNDBITE (French)Thierry Guillon, Distiller:
From this barley flour we're going to make beer, we're going to add hot water, for about four hours and then extract the beer. The beer ferments up to 8 degrees alcohol and then we transfer it to those stills of 750 litres.
15. Various of barrels
16. SOUNDBITE (French)Thierry Guillon, Distiller :
''This is the third still, that's where we do the second distillation. In four hours we're going to raise the alcohol from 25 degrees to 80. What is special about this still is that it contains only 300 litres, ten times less than the Scottish ones. What we are extracting from here is white whisky, then we are putting that white whiskey for at least 3 years in oak barrels. We have different oak barrels which will give you the colour over time, as well as the taste.
17. Various of whisky oak barrels
18. Thierry Guillon filling whisky bottle
19. SOUNDBITE (French) Thierry Guillon, Distiller:
Those bottles are sent worldwide, they are always in boxes like this, and here's the famous whisky from the Reims mountain.
20. Close up bottle label
LEAD IN :
France is in the middle of what is being called a wine crisis as the country's wines have been steadily losing ground on the world wine export market.
But in Champagne region one man has decided to break the wine-making mould and produce another alcoholic beverage instead - whisky.
STORYLINE :
France's Champagne region is one of the most famous grape growing and wine producing areas of the world.
Perhaps a little known fact is that the area is also a major barley producer.
This makes it the perfect location for former vintner, Thierry Guillon's latest venture - whisky production.
Guillon says he wanted to use the local barley and the water source on his land to produce his own whisky brand.
The Guillon Distillery has been producing single malt whisky since 1999.
By the end of 2002 the first bottles of Guillon whisky were ready and 10-thousand bottles were sold in 2003.
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