The Verzenay windmill and the Montagne de Reims

Verzenay is fifteen minutes south-east of Reims on the north face of the Montagne de Reims, and it has the two landmarks that make the Champagne vineyard photographable rather than just green. The first is the windmill, a squat stone mill standing alone on a rounded knoll with vines running down all sides of it — a rare vertical in a landscape that is otherwise all horizontal stripes. The second is the lighthouse on the next rise, a folly built in 1909 as an advertisement, now a museum with a viewing platform.

The classic frame is from the vineyard track below the mill, low down so the rows lead uphill to it. The slope faces north and north-east, so the light is gentlest in the last hour before sunset, when the sun is round to the west and the plain behind goes hazy and pale. Sunrise works too and is completely empty.

Season matters as much as the hour. The vines are in leaf from May, and the two weeks around the harvest in late September turn the whole slope yellow-gold with tractors moving through it. From November to March the same view is bare wire and brown chalk.

As everywhere in Champagne, the parcels are private and worked. Public tracks run between them and are fine to use; the rows themselves are not, and during harvest the tracks are working roads.