A Sparkling Weekend at Leonardslee
Most people, if pressed, would tell you that the French do wine and the English make cars, and that the two nations should really stay in their respective lanes. It’s a reasonable adage, the sort trotted out at dinner parties by people who have never tasted an English sparkling wine or driven a French sports car. And, like most adages, it isn’t really based on the evidence. So naturally, three of us on a girls’ weekend set out to dismantle it entirely. We took a French car with genuine racing pedigree, pointed it at an English vineyard and went to see just how quickly the adage held true. The car in question was the new electric four-door Alpine A390 and, if the name means nothing to you yet, it soon will. This is a marque that made its name in the mountain passes and rally stages of the 1960s and ’70s, winning the Monte Carlo Rally, the Coupe des Alpes and the 24 Hours of Le Mans; the sort of racing pedigree that even the best marketing cannot replicate. The A390 is Alpine’s first...
