Fancy a glass of champagne?

After OD-ing on museums in Paris, we thought it would be good to indulge in some champagne tastings instead and off we went to Reims.

As everyone knows, champagne is only produced in a particular area of France, all other bubbly wine has to be called something else, i.e sparkling wine, prosecco, basically anything other than champagne. We decided to visit Moet & Chandon and Tattinger, two champagne houses in Epernay and Reims.

Crazy underground network of wine cellars

(stays at a constant temperature of 10-12 celsius throughout the year)

We visited Moet & Chandon first, and as expected, the set-up was pretty impressive. We had to reserve the tour in advance but we lost our way and turned up a little late so we missed most of the corporate video and instead started in the cellars. Our guide was a French lady who took a while to warm up to the group but overall she was a rather good guide. It was a small group (6 only) but they were a fun bunch with lots of jokes and interesting facts shared. So back to school and some of things we learnt.

• Three different types of grapes are used to make champagne, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are white grapes whereas Pinot Meunier is red. Though Pinot Meunier is red, it produces white wine! And I’ve always thought only white grapes produce white wine and that champagne is only made from white grapes. Its the skin of red grapes which makes it red.
• Vintage champagne is made only with grapes from a certain year. This depends on the champagne maker’s decision and the grapes obviously have to be very good that year for him to make that decision. Most of the champage available is actually a mixture of grapes from different years.
• The bubbles in champagne is a result of natural fermentation occurring in the bottle and not as a result of injection of carbon dioxide in the wine. I can almost hear the sneer in the guide’s voice when she said this.

Endless rows of maturing wine

• The champagne bottles need to be turned to allow the sediment to settle (the sediment is the yeast they inject to interact with the wine to create the bubbles). They still turn some by hand but most are turned by machines now.
• To remove the sediment, they freeze it at the bottle neck and the pressure within the bottle will pop the iced sediment out, plug it with a cork and still retain enough pressure for us to pop it at home.
• Champagne just like wine needs to be aged before drinking. There is a French authority which regulates the minimum number of months the champagne must be aged before it can be sold, minimum of 18 months for normal champagne and 36 months for vintage champagne. The champagne bottles are left to age in the cellars of the respective champagne houses, so there are literally thousands of champagne bottles underground in that particular region in France!!! The cellars are all next to each other so the champagne houses actually can’t really expand any further. Oh the cellars are actually quite gross and for some of the bottles, the layer of dust on them is quite unbelievable.

Be fabulous like Scarlett Johansson

(she hosted a dinner in the wine cellar!)

After the tour, we had our tasting of the champagne! Hehe… just what we were waiting for. We had paid to drink 2 types of champagne, the normal one and the rose one. Both of us preferred the normal champagne and it was really easy to drink. Oh Moet and Chandon and Dom Perignon belong to the same company but brewed at different places, so if you can't afford Dom Perignon, you can still buy Moet, hehe...

Hello, Mr Perignon

The next day, we visited Tattinger. This tour didn’t require any reservation so there were quite a lot of people. It felt a bit like they were herding sheep actually. The guide was rather friendly but most of the info was the same as Moet so nothing new to learn. The set up wasn’t as impressive as Moet I must say, but apparently their cellars were bigger than Moet. Strangely enough, we have not heard of them before, but then again we are not exactly big champagne drinkers. We had the champagne tasting again after the tour (just one glass this time) and we both preferred the Moet one instead as that just tasted smoother.

Other than getting drunk on champagne, we also visited the Notre Dame in Reims. Yes, there is a Notre Dame in Reims, and apparently there is a Notre Dame in almost every city in France, think it’s a bit like Duomos in Italy, haha… Apparently the kings of France were once crowned there, so the interior is quite amazing with quite lovely stained glass windows. The exterior is also quite a sight, towering large cathedral with loads and loads of statues and statuettes.

Interior of the coronation cathedral

Exterior

All in all, Reims was quite enjoyable, and of course the champagne definitely helped, hehe…