Go back a few entries to read about Day 1 and Day 2 of my recent “Champagne Campaign” - my solo trip to discover the Champagne houses in France!
So I’ve been back from France for over a week now, and it’s all starting to go blurry, what with work and The Tree and all of the other stuff going on. I need to get this written down while I still remember it. So here we go:
Day 3: Woke a bit hungover again from the exquisite dinner with Pascal the night before. My train to Reims wasn’t until 1 pm, so I originally had planned the option to go for a morning wander through the neighborhood, but instead I opted to slowly get ready and then have brunch in the garden courtyard at the hotel because it’s just so serene, lush and beautiful (and because I’d been jet lagged and hungover for two days in a row!)
Ended up getting to the train station super early because I wanted to make sure I knew where I was going and what I was doing. Lots of waiting, but good people watching at the station! I just love European train stations - generally they are quite beautiful, and there’s good shopping and good food.
Boarded the train exactly on time and took the short 45-minute TGV (fast train) trip to Reims - the Champagne capitol! But it took an hour because there was some kind of issue on the train track and we had to do some kind of detour. I couldn’t tell exactly what the announcement said, so I asked someone in my horrible broken French if he could tell me in English what was happening. The guy I asked didn’t really know (and only spoke a little English), but he assured me that it was just fine and we got to Reims alive and well!
The hotel was just a short walk from the train station, through a wide beautiful street, vibrant and full of cafes and fun places to eat and drink. So cool and beautiful! So easy to navigate! The hotel staff was lovely and as soon as I checked in, I also ordered a taxi to take me to Veuve Clicquot, where I had an appointment for a tour of their Champagne house and caves.
Got to the immaculate Champagne house, and was basically patted down by security before I was allowed to go through the walled gate and into the place itself. [Side note: security was VERY high everywhere I went in France. I really didn’t feel unsettled. I actually felt quite safe the whole time I was there] I was so early that there was actually a tour in English that was about to start and they asked me if I wanted to join this earlier tour and I said sure!
My tour was with several smaller groups of people from various places: England, Holland, India, Australia (I think) and one other guy from the US (he was from Los Angeles and NOT friendly). Something I noted about these tours in the big Champagne houses from the get-go is that they are extremely formal. They take their Champagne making VERY seriously and there is no joking around (unlike if you go on a tour in another wine region, like say, Napa). I didn’t know this at first, so when we walked through these extremely large doors (with massive round handles) to go into the area where the caves are, I cracked a joke about how HUGE the knockers were, I only got a few stifled giggles out of the Brits.
I decided to keep my mouth shut and listen.
But the caves are so incredible! These caves that are about 100’ below ground were initially chalk mines. They are at a constant 50-degress with about 95% humiditiy year round. And it just so happens they are a perfect setting for storing champagne - and the chalk in the region is the perfect substrate in which to grow the grapes that make Champagne: Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, and Chardonnay.
I learned so much on the tour - not only about Champagne, the grapes, the fermentation process, the disgorging process, and the storage, but also the caves (or crayeres) were fascinating to me! These underground tunnels stretch for miles and miles through the region. And during wartimes, the townspeople LIVED in these caves. And inside these caves were schools, bakeries, theaters, hospitals…everything a town needed to live life! In fact, you can still see graffiti where people wrote on the walls and drew pictures, etc.
I know that most people who know history know these things. But let’s put it this way, when I was in school, made very good grades, yet it was a lot of memorizing and regurgitating. Reading about places and things and what happened when and where and seeing photos is one thing, but actually experiencing these places and things in the flesh is another. Here I was, living and breathing in the same place where other people were fighting for their lives and living in caves while their city was being bombed on a daily basis. It was moving, to say the least.
And then on to the Champagne tasting!! This was supposed to be the really fun part, and the tour guide asked for a volunteer to open the first bottle of Vintage Veuve Cliquot! Me, me, me!!! I raised my hand and she picked me (because everyone else was a stick-in-the-mud). It was a 2006 La Grande Dame Brut and it was spectacular, but I fumbled with the bottle because I’d never opened a bottle of bubbly the way she was showing me how to open it (by twisting the bottom of the bottle). And so I kind of embarrassed myself, but you know what? Fuck it. Loosen up, people and enjoy yourselves! Remember how I’d just said the night before to Pascal that I was going to stop being so hard on myself? Perfect example!
Wine tasting at the Champagne houses in France is not like wine tasting in the US. Here, the tastings were two FULL glasses of bubbly. I could not believe my eyes when I saw people leaving half-full glasses of champers on the tables and walking out!! I stayed on to enjoy my two full glasses, as did the Dutch family. So we started chatting. It was a charming family - a young couple, just married and the woman’s parents. They were warm and friendly, and I realized that perhaps the formality of the situation was simply because we were in a formal setting and that once we broke out of that formality (as in, the stuffy people left!), I was in a much more relaxed place.
I loved talking with this family. They were warm and friendly and funny! I was happy that I’d stayed to chat.
And then it was time to go back to the hotel to freshen up for dinner. I’d decided that I wanted to see the cathedral at night so I could catch the light show. It’s this pretty amazing thing that Reims has done to celebrate the cathedral’s 800th year. A light show is projected onto the cathedral, and it’s about a 30-minute spectacle of light and sound. I found a video on youtube that is 5 minutes and gives you a pretty good idea of what this looks like.
Anyway, I found a spot to eat right next to the cathedral. Actually had a hamburger that was delicious (after eating tons of French cuisine, it tasted really good), and then I waited for it to get dark. The show was to begin around 9:30. I waited over an hour while the night fell and people started crowding around. I sat next to the people of the city and nodded when they spoke French to me…I smiled at the children playing and all of the people in the streets. It was pretty magical to be sitting among this crowd of strangers who were so welcoming.
That reminds me - the French are VERY welcoming to tourists right now. After the events of last year and this year, they are happy to have people who are not afraid and who come to France to visit. If you even speak just a tiny bit of French (like I barely do!), they will welcome you with open arms.
Anyway, the light show was great, but I will be honest - it got a little old after about 15 minutes. And after about 20 minutes, there was some technical difficulty with one of the projectors or something (Mercury in retrograde!), so I didn’t see the whole show, but that’s OK. I missed like the last 5 minutes. But I felt like I’d really seen something special as I walked back to the hotel.
Back to the hotel and after posting photos to Facebook and Instagram, I was WIPED OUT for the day. I slept like the dead.
Day 3 - SUCCESS!
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