Champagne...And lots of it!

The end of July meant only one thing - we were off to Epernay to drink lots of Champagne!

I've been wanting to visit the Champagne region for a number of years, so my 40th birthday was the perfect excuse. 

On 19th July, we flew Air France from Edinburgh to Paris Charles de Gaulle; we were supposed to have plenty of time to get into central Paris and walk to the Gare de l'Est so that we could get the train to Epernay, but that changed when our flight was over 2 hours late leaving Edinburgh. After clearing customs and picking up our luggage, we jumped on a train to the Gare du Nord, which was also delayed. By the time we arrived in the centre of Paris, we had 15 minutes to get on the train and it was 37 degrees! We ran with our cases, sweating buckets, but we made it, with a massive 2 minutes to spare! 

(If we hadn't made the train, we would have missed out on a Champagne house tour and a relaxing afternoon in Epernay.)

We arrived into Epernay, and walked to the Avenue de Champagne as we were staying at Champagne André Bergère for the first three nights. The first thing we did was shower, and then go downstairs to the garden for a beautiful glass of their Champagne. 

It was so hot outside and I would have happily sat there all day, but we had a tour booked at Champagne Mercier. This is one of the bigger houses, owned by LVMH, but they have a little train that takes you around their cellars which is really good fun; the champagne tasting was pretty good too!

Now before I go any further, its worth mentioning that everything we did was thanks to my friend Emily; she quite literally planned out the whole itinerary for me, I just had to book it and turn up! 

So that leads us nicely on to Champagne Elodie D; Emily and her husband are friends with the owners so we thought we would pop in to say hello and try some Champagne. I'd like to point out that there is also water on the table because it hit 40 degrees in the late afternoon. We had some lovely Champagnes and we were made to feel very welcome!

After leaving Champagne Elodie D, we walked down the Avenue to grab a bite to eat. We just happened to pop into another house on the way. Emily had also recommended Collard-Picard so we popped in for another tasting; she was right, the rose was excellent. Both of us were exhausted by now and slightly worse for wear, so it was an early dinner and early night (not that I really remember dinner!)

Day two began in much the same way as the previous one, food followed by Champagne. We had a wonderful breakfast in the hotel before heading to the first Champagne house of the day (at 10am, I might add). 

Thankfully, it was just around the corner and was pretty difficult to miss. Champagne de Castellane has a very large tower which you can climb to see the views over Epernay. The tour was excellent and we definitely learned a lot, and thoroughly enjoyed the tasting.

Next stop Champagne Alfred Gratien for some Champagne and Cheese! There was only us and another couple (from Sweden), but the pairings were excellent; this was probably one of our favourites so far. I'm not sure why I don't have any pictures with the Cheese, but I promise there was! Iain also bought a pen which had a 2GB USB thumbdrive hidden as the lid. Iain had to have it. The tour guide said he would never use it, and she was right.

Our final tour of the day was at Comtesse Lafond; it was now pouring rain and I don't think the guide was too impressed with my Champagne Alfred Gratien umbrella! This was a very different tour, and I felt like we were not entirely welcome - the Chateau however is beautiful and worth a visit.

It was raining so much, we decided to pop into the closest Champagne house, which just happened to be Michel Mailliard. We were the only people there, which seems crazy given there was a huge under cover area outside.

It was about 6pm, so we decided to go back to the hotel and change before going for dinner. What better than pizza to soak up the Champagne; the French seemed to agree as the place was heaving!

The weather also significantly improved on the walk back to the hotel, but it was an early night for us as we were taking the train to Reims the following day.

We were up bright and early as our first tour was at 9.45am and around a 40 minute walk from the train station. The train ride was good and there was certainly lots of vineyards to photograph on the journey; I'm sure you can tell from the picture that I'm not really a morning person!

Reims is definitely known for the "big" Champagne houses so we mostly went with tours that looked a bit different or interesting. 

First up was Lanson! We chose this tour because it included a full history of the champagne house, a guided cellar tour and also a vineyard tour. They have a 1 acre vineyard behind the building! It was interesting to see the vines up close and the tour was incredibly informative. We even got to try a glass of the champagne of the crop from last year.

Our next tour wasn't until 2pm, so we decided to walk back into the centre of the city and have some lunch; we just happened to go into the Cathedral of Notre-Dame at Reims on the way.

The next champagne house was a 20 minute walk in the opposite direction and it included two tastings and a visit to both Pommery and Villa Demoiselle. We started off at the Villa which was across the road from Pommery; the Villa was beautiful, but I wasn't a big fan of their champagne (Vranken).

The tour of Pommery was self-guided but they have some amazing art installations in the cellar; lots of pictures included below. 

Last, but certainly not least, was a tour of G.H. Martell which was only a 10 minute walk away. It was more of a tasting, so we went with the "prestige" collection. We got to try three out of the below and were well and truly knackered afterwards; it was more the 20,000+ steps rather than the amount of champagne!

We walked slowly back to the Reims train station, stopping off at a few gift shops on the way. We finally got back to Epernay around 8pm, walked back to the hotel and had to pack as this was our last night at Champagne André Bergère.

Next stop Étoges...