Champagne Anyone?

The Champagne Crew

There are very few places in the world that carry more prestige than that of Champagne, France.  Located just 90 minutes outside of Paris you would assume that this famous region would be overrun with all varietals of summer tourists. Yet, surprisingly, this isn't at all the case.  What does exist is a perfect balance of large, name brand champagne and small family vineyards.  It's not overrun with anyone and as you travel throughout the region you come to realize that this outcome is completely intentional.  It's quite a place.

Oh and it doesn't hurt that it looks like this:

Pretty terrible, right?

To pick up the story where Jamie left off, we wrapped up our Paris visit with a well completed to do list.  Having both been to Paris it allowed for us to explore the city a bit deeper than our first go around.  We took a walk up to Montmartre to see the Sacre-Coeur (Sacred Heart Cathedral), extensively toured our neighborhood of La Marais, placed a lock on the "love lock" bridge (Pont de l'Archeveche), walked past the Louvre through the Jardin des Touleries, along the Seine and down the Champ de Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe and visited our friends Kimmy and Chris in Versailles.  We both thoroughly enjoyed our Paris 2.0 experience. 

We kicked off our Champagne weekend with a seemingly easy Dollar rental car pick up outside the Paris Montparnasse train station.  Well, that's a bit of a lie as we didn't realize the Dollar rental office was actually outside of the train station until we asked a few very confused train station employees.  No problem, off we went to pick up our spacious seven passenger van for the weekend, right?  Nope, wrong.  Not a shocker here but the definition of a seven passenger vehicle in the states isn't exactly how they define it in Paris.  Allow me to paint the picture.  The truck we were assigned is basically a Chevy Blazer with a third row that essentially eliminated any trunk space.  We had six people, one baby, five large bags, four backpacks, one diaper bag, one stroller and a partridge in a pear tree.  Let's just say we were all quite proud of our Tetris playing abilities as we pulled out of that garage.  Having your feet on the ground is vastly overrated.

Real life Tetris level.  Challenge accepted. 

We stayed in a small town of Trélou-sur-Marne, which is situation in the western half of the Champagne region.  We rented a house from a family who produces a small line of Champagne. As part of our stay we were allowed to tour their cellar and taste their delicious champagne.

Line of Champagne produced by our hosts in Trélou-sur-Marne

Where Mom sits and adheres, by hand, all of the labels to their Champagne bottles.  DIY before it became hipster cool. 

Our housing location was perfect.  It allowed easy access to the larger well know towns of the region (Epernay & Reims) while providing a distinct small town charm that was appreciated after five nights in busy Paris.  Most importantly it gave us the opportunity for a beautiful morning run, much needed after the constant consumption of cheese and baguettes.

Run route

We spent the next three days enjoying all that Champagne had to offer.  We ate, we drank, we had a birthday (well me).  During our bubble induced bender we made a stop at the most famous Champagne producers in the world.  That would be Moet & Chandon, producer of Moet and Dom Perignon. The tour/tasting at Moet & Chandon was certainly the most expensive, but even at 28 Euro per person it was definitely worth the price.  

The tour started with a full history of the Moet family.  The vineyard was started by Claude Moet. The rise to prominence was largely due to the personal taste of King Henry XV, who clearly knew how to throw a party, in the mid 1700's.  It wasn't however until a son in law, Pierre - Gabriel Chandon, took over to where the brand really took off. 

Ok, enough history for one post.  

Before we entered the cellar portion of the tour we were shuffled in to watch a short movie on the Moet & Chandon brand.  When they say movie they apparently meant commercial, as it was literally a 10-minute commercial about their Champagne.  The voice of the narrator in the video had a comically seductive voice.  When combined with their drastic overuse of adjectives in the video (she would just randomly say thing like juicy, wet), it quickly became a running joke for the rest of the day to pick a random term and recite in our most sensual voices.  It seems quite apparent that Julie is destined for a new profession.

The cellars at Moet & Chandon are awe-inspiring.  As I mentioned earlier the distance from Paris to the Champagne region is roughly 90 minutes.  There are so many bottles of champagne in their cellar that if laid end to end it would reach the full distance back to Paris.  That should just about cover P Diddy’s next White Party.  We learned about the grape selection process, the varietals that go into the different types of Champagne, and that Dom Perignon is produced entirely by hand.  We aren’t really sure the “made by hand” process results in the champagne being any better but we are sure that it allows for the much higher price tag.  We finished with a tasting of a Moet Reserve Brut and a Moet Rose, a perfect end to the tour. 

Please, just a taste?!?

Throughout our time in Champagne we learned some interesting factoids.  I will bestow this knowledge on you now.  Word of caution, just the right amount of champagne knowledge makes you interesting, too many factoids makes you a douche.  Use carefully:

• The champagne glass, as you know it today was created to maximize the bubbles after a champagne pour.  Specifically, in nice champagne glasses, there is a small dimple indent in the very bottom of the glass, which creates a flow chamber for the bubbles to continuously rise.

• Champagne is a region, not a grape.

• Champagne must be kept in a cellar for a minimum of 15 months to be labeled as Champagne. 

• Most champagne is produced by pressing together three types of grapes – Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier

• Champagne's bubbles are created when the yeast consumes the sugar during the second fermentation After the second fermentation there is sediment (left over yeast) in the bottom of the bottle.

• Thru a process called “Remuage” the remaining sediment is removed from the bottle.  The corresponding lost liquid is replaced by a specially selected wine blend along with a blast of sugar to create the final varietal of champagne.    

• There are three main types of champagne – Brut Nature, Brut, and Brut Demi Sec.  The difference being the amount of sugar added after the second fermentation.

• Local vineyards are separated into three types: Regular Cru, Reserve Cru and Grand Cru 

• When those grapes are blended together, there is no vintage year on the bottle.  

• When only Grand Cru grapes are used there is a vintage year is on the bottle.

• Dom Perignon is only produced using Grand Cru

Rose' B_itches

Fun Fact: The best cherry pie I have had in Europe was made by an American, thanks Kimmy!