Touring Champagne

Ah French champagne. What a wonderful invention.

After we left Bourgogne, we hopped in the car and headed toward my version of heaven: champagne country. I’m a big champagne fan, and was very excited to be heading to the mecca of champagne, Reims.

The cathedral in Reims

 Our first stop was lunch at Le Jardin, the brasserie attached to Les Crayeres, a beautiful hotel right next to all of the big champagne houses. I had planned this lunch as our special meal of the trip (although all of them were wonderful!), and was very much looking forward to it.

View of Les Crayeres from above. Trust me when I say its in the middle of the city, even though it doesn't look like it here. Its really an oasis in the city. Photo credit: http://www.lescrayeres.com/

In fact I was so excited for our lunch that I was a bit of stress case when we were running late as it was and then proceeded to be misled by the GPS. So I’ll sneak in here an apology to V for my nervous ways, and a thank you for being the patron saint of patience, yet again!

Once we arrived I calmed down thanks to a delicious glass of Aubry champagne (seriously one of the best I’ve ever had…search it out if your ever in the champagne region, we tried to go to their champagne house, but sadly it was closed…guess we’ll have to go back!), and we enjoyed a lovely meal in the gorgeous warm weather out in their beautiful garden.

Photo Credit: eyestylist.com

From lunch we made our way to Tattinger for a tour of their caves and tasting.

During the tour I learned a lot about how they make champagne – all in French, thankyouverymuch.

We wandered the caves, spying some amazing looking rooms filled to the brim with bottles of champagne.

The tour ended with a tasting. Although it must be said that the Tattinger paled in comparison to the Aubry we had a lunch, which really surprised me. I think its hard to find a bad French champagne (because the process is so regulated), so the champagne at Tattinger was certainly very enjoyable, but whoa was that Aubry something special.

The next day we hopped in the car and took a spin through the country roads that connect the champagne making villages. I was staggered by the sheer number of champagne houses, most of them with unrecognizable names in tiny villages. Once again I was on a mission to seek out a small producer, and there were no lack of options to fulfil my goal.

The first small village we stopped in, it was too early on a Sunday morning and most of the champagne producers were closed. But we found one that was willing to open for us (they must have seen us lurking around their windows, haha), and it turned out to be a guy from a village very close to where V’s parents live – small world!

He showed us his all hand-done operation, including putting the labels on the bottles, and we tasted two of his champagnes. In truth I felt a little obligated to buy from him since he had opened for us and been so nice during the tour, but the champagne was also quite delicious so it was a pleasure to fullfil that obligation.

We continued to drive around the champagne region, and stopped to enjoy the views at this lovely spot, and then continued on to Epernay for lunch.

A quick lunch in Epernay and then we were on the road home again. I could have easily spent another couple of days driving around the back country champagne region, it was so lovely and beautiful, and not to mention all of that champagne!

A huge thanks to V and his parents for a lovely trip – I’m quite spoiled to be able to experience Europe in this way!