Eighty-two years after a young sergeant carved his name into the cellars of Champagne Gosset, his children have come to Épernay to meet him there.
Descend the steps into a Champagne cellar and the air changes. It turns cool and still, faintly mineral, with that damp-chalk scent that clings to the back of the throat. The bottles rest in their quiet rows, but they are not the only thing the cellar keeps. Look closely at the walls and you'll find the people who passed through.
At Champagne Gosset in Épernay, one such trace has just brought an American family face to face with a chapter of their father's life they never knew existed. Cut into the pale chalk are the words:
"F. JURCZAK, CONN., USA, DEC 16, 1944"
On 5 October 2026, Richard Jurczak and his sister Susan Carlson, joined by their families, stood in front of it. The hand that made it belonged to their father, Sergeant Frank Stanley Jurczak.
A Soldier's Mark
Champagne was liberated in August 1944 as Allied forces pushed across northern France. Among the American servicemen stationed in Champagne was Frank, a young soldier from New Britain, Connecticut. As a member of the US Army's 129th Ordnance Bomb Disposal Squad, his work was to find and make safe the explosives left behind by war. It is hard to imagine a job requiring steadier nerves.
On 16 December 1944, he took a moment for himself. He carved his name, his home state and the date into the wall of a cellar. Why that day, and why that place? The answer, as it turns out, is that it was his birthday.
Reading the Walls
In 2021, Gosset commissioned historians to study its Épernay estate and catalogue the inscriptions scattered through 1.7 kilometres of underground cellars. Hundreds emerged. There were German military helmets dating to the 1870s, messages left by French soldiers during the First World War, and sketches of the work of making Champagne. Frank's signature sat in a corner the team knew as the American's cellar.
The thread was picked up in October 2023, when visitors from New Orleans toured the cellars. Hospitality Manager Nathalie Dufour shared the story, and guest Brian Ace suggested searching military records through his contacts at the National WWII Museum.
On 5 January 2024, the Maison received remarkable news. Frank's son, Richard, had been found. He also learned that the date on the wall was his father's birthday.
A Family Meets Its History
This October, Richard and Susan returned to the chalk to see their father's handwriting for themselves. A commemorative plaque was unveiled, with a particular thought for their late brother, Frank Junior.
It's a reminder that Champagne's heritage is not only vines, villages and celebrated Houses. It has also been shaped by conflict, resilience and ordinary human experience, much of it still waiting in the dark.
Frank could hardly have imagined that a few letters scratched into chalk would draw his children to the same spot eight decades later. What began as an anonymous inscription is now a personal history recovered. Champagne's best stories, it seems, are not always found in the glass.
