I often find myself staring at the wine map of France on our kitchen wall. Less drawn to the famous, colour-coded regions, my eyes scan the blank canvas of the north. With the steady rise of English, Scandinavian and other wine regions previously too cool for viticulture, what of France’s...
The map is not the terroir – Normandy as a wine region
Guest contributor
Thursday 15 January 2026
• 1 min read
Turning tides have brought wine back to the edges of north-west France, says Paris-based journalist Chris Howard. This is part one of a two-part series; the other, on Brittany, is coming soon. Above, the dawn of wine in Normandy – Eric Doré’s five-month-old vines above Les Andelys, photographed by Maxime Gazeau.
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