Champagne Region

We took a day trip to the Champagne region from Paris because you know I like my bubbly! It was an hour on the high speed train to Reims. There was a little monitor on the train that kept updating our speed. We reached 317 km/hour which is almost 200 mph! Crazy! The French countryside was beautiful!

 

The town of Reims was very cute. Like a mini Paris!

 We walked around for a couple of hours before lunch.

We had lunch at Brasserie Flo. We sat out on the patio. Almost everyone that was having lunch there was drinking champagne. Even people in business suits on work lunches! There were also quite a few champagne shops all throughout the town.

 

We had a private guide for the afternoon and she picked us up at the restaurant. We drove through the Marne Valley and stopped at a point that overlooked the Champagne town of Epernay.

Rows and Rows of grapes.We found out that what makes this area the best for producing champagne is the chalky soil. You can only call a sparkling wine champagne if its from this region in France.

It is about to be harvesting season where tens of thousands of people flock to the area to help harvest! Harvest season is occurring a little late this year at the beginning of October.

 

We got to taste a grape!

 

So beautiful.

We then stopped at a little town called Hautvillers right outside of Epernay for our first champagne house. I had told the guide that we wanted to visit one small producer so she took us to the family operation, Fernand Lemaire. The mom and dad were on holiday, but we were able to sit with their 25 year old daughter, Helen, and taste their three different types of Champagne. We also got to tour their facility.

They produce 15,000 bottles of champagne a year.

 

Their cellar.

 

The three champagnes we tried. We bought two bottles!

Driving through the Marne Valley you would see Moet et Chandon vineyards right next to Tattinger right next to a different vinyard.

 

We then visted Moet et Chandon which is the largest Champagne house in the world. It was neat to see two totally different sides of champagne making.

The house was gorgeous!

They have 17 miles of cellars underground!!!

 

We then got to have a glass at the end of the tour in the tasting room.

 

Basically, the difference in making still wine and champagne is a second fermentation process. Once a blend has been created, a mixture of still wine, sugar and yeast will be added to the blended wine.This mixture is known as the “liqueur de triage”.

 

The wine is then bottled with a crown cap (think beer) and left to begin a secondary fermentation in the bottle. Here, active yeast will begin consuming the available sugar, resulting in the anaerobic production of alcohol within this sealed bottle. A by-product of this fermentation is carbon dioxide, which if not allowed to escape into the atmosphere, results C02 which is dissolved into the wine a.k.a., bubbles! This second fermentation generally takes between 4-8 weeks.

 

It was really cool to learn about the process! It was a fun day full of great food and bubbly!