EPERNAY - CHAMPAGNE REGION

It was a solid 4 hour drive from Riquewihr to Epernay, so we aimed to be on the road by 10am.  Again this proved difficult with 4 people trying to wash themselves in the shower built for a midget, but we managed to get it done with no one slipping on the wet floor, had another super breakfast and were in the car by 10:30-11.

The drive took us on a scenic journey through green hills and pretty villages and also through bigger towns such as Nancy and Metz and then Dad came up with the great idea of stopping off at the Douaumont Ossuary in Verdun which is only about an hour or so from Epernay.

The Battle of Verdun (also known as the "mincing machine of Verdun") was one of the major battles during WW1, fought between the German and French armies.  According to contemporary estimation, there were roughly 975,000 casualties (515k on the French side and 460k on the German side).  It was the longest (10 months) and one of the most devastating battles in WW1 and the history of warfare.

The Douaumont Ossuary is a memorial to the soldiers who died on the battlefield in Verdun. Walking along the cloisters, it was quite a moving experience to see so many different names and big posters of war veterans who were holding up photo's of themselves during their time in the war.  We then got to watch a 20 minute video which showed real footage of the battle and also gave us all the important history and facts etc. so that we actually knew what we were looking at.

However it was outside where we really got the chills.  Through small windows, the skeletal remains of at least 130,000 unidentified combatants of both nations can be seen filling up alcoves at the lower edge of the building.

The building itself is made up of an imposing stone structure with a 50m tower and the beautifully maintained fields house a cemetery with the graves of a further 15,000 French soldiers.  To see so many white crosses was equally as imposing as looking at the skeletons as it made you think just how many soldiers lost their lives.

Driving away from the Ossuary, the road took us through large forested areas that were all undulated like a golf course and we realised that they were the old trenches that had now been grown over with grass and trees etc.

We hopped out and walked around for a while and tried to consider what it would have been like, but let's fact it, it's pretty much impossible to think about what it was like.

The car was pretty quiet for the last hour of our journey to Epernay, but as we drove up the Avenue du Champagne and looked at all the huge champagne mansions from the world's biggest producers that lined this magnificent street, we all piped up a bit.

Mum had booked us into a great hotel, right in the heart of the action, and thank god this time we had separate rooms and our own showers that we could actually stand up in haha!

Epernay is literally the home of champagne.  Beneath the streets in some 100km of subterranean cellars, 200 million bottles of champagne (!!!!!), just waiting to be popped open for some sparkling celebration, are being aged at any one time.  

The evidence of champagne was no more prevalent then at dinner that night.  The menu had one whole page full of the different bottles of champagne you could order and surprisingly they were all pretty cheap, even a bottle of MoeT was around 50-60 euro.

Mum had conveniently booked dinner that night in the hotel bistro "Les Berceaux"who's chef Patrick Michelon had an aptly named surname because his actual restaurant next door had one or two Michelin hats.

We were only in the bistro, but the service was top notch and even a plain steak and fries was excellent!  

I tried to convince everyone that dessert was a great idea, but I was let down when no one else wanted to join me and I thought I was destined to go a full day without having anything sweet.  Luckily the lovely waitress convinced me to just order on my own and before I knew it I was delving in to a delicious berry pudding and cream, yum!!

M & D called it a night after dinner and Anna and I went for a walk up the amazing Avenue du Champagne.  The street is lined with mansion after mansion, the biggest and grandest houses you could imagine and they are all owned by the biggest champagne houses in the world. 

the most famous champagne brand in the world, MoeT & Chandon

The next day was a day that Mum especially had been looking forward to for a long long time.  She had spent literally hours and hours and hours trying to organise a guided tour through the champagne region, but being a Sunday, she had really struggled.  Finally she locked one in and we were told to be waiting outside the hotel at 9:40am sharp for pickup.

At 9:50am we were still waiting and Mum was starting to twitch and I think there were a couple of F-Bombs muttered under her breath as well, but luckily a few minutes later, the mini-van arrived and we piled in.

There were only 3 other people (an American couple and a single American woman) in the van, so we were hoping to gain plenty out of it.  Our tour guide was a pale skinned ranga and as French as they come.  In fact his accent was so strong that we could hardly understand a word he said.

First stop on the tour was the Mercier champagne house, but it was only a brief visit to see the largest barrel in the world.  In 1870, Eugene Mercier had a giant vat of 1600 hectolitres (the equivalent of 200,000 bottles of wine at the time) built in time for the World Exhibition in Paris in 1889.  It took 8 days, 12 pairs of oxen and 18 horses to transport the 20-ton "Cathedral of Champagne" from Epernay to Paris, but it was worth it because it became the second most popular attraction behind the Eiffel Tower and Mercier rapidly developed as one of the most well known champagne brands in the world.

We left the Mercier champagne house and headed into the luscious green vineyards of MoeT & Chandon.  We very quickly realised that it was most important to pronounce the T as Chris' French accent hilariously made it very obvious!

it was harvest time, so there were heaps of pickers out and about filling up bucket after bucket

It was pretty amazing to walk around the vineyards of the current day most well known and most popular bottle of champagne in the world.  Even more amazing was to cheekily pick some of the grapes and eat them.  Not many people can say they have eaten a MoeT & Chandon grape!!

a special tractor that cuts each vine at the exact same width and height, keeping them all in perfect line

We then drove a little further until we reached a much smaller family run champagne house called Jean Milan.  Here we were able to watch the grapes being squashed and pressed into grape juice and were even allowed to have a small cup of pure grape juice, it was so sweet, just so good!

We were then told about the actual process of making champagne and boy what a meticulous process it is!  From the planting of vines, to the picking of grapes, pressing of grapes, initial fermentation in stainless steel vats, adding of sugar and yeast, bottling and horizontal stacking, second alcoholic fermentation stage, the daily riddling of each bottle and finally the ageing period depending on what complexity the makers are going for.

The riddling process is easily the most pain-staking.  During the second bottle fermentation, the yeast forms a deposit on the side of the bottle and so the bottles are placed in racks and turned once a day for 6 to 8 weeks.  By gradually inclining each bottle into a vertical position, the deposit flows down towards the neck until it can be withdrawn from the bottle.

We were told that at Jean Milan, this riddling operation is still done manually (talk about a shit job!), although nowadays the traditional work of the riddler is mostly carried out by machines.

We had a quick look down in the cellars at the thousands of bottles that were going through the ageing process and then it was time to sample the goods.

This was no ordinary wine tasting where you have a small sip and that's it, these were full sized glasses of champagne and I think we tried 3 different kinds.  I am not usually a champagne drinker and was already feeling the bubbles up and down my spine and in my head when we left haha.

Next stop was Hautvillers, a small town 5km's from Epernay that is regarded as the most famous village of all the area because it is home to the Abbey where the monk Dom Perignon gave birth to the first bubbles of champagne around 1681.

We visited the JM Gobillard & Fils champagne house which is primarily located in Hautviller's vineyards which enables it to grow the three grape varieties comprised in the champagne area; chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meaner.

Another three glasses of bubbly down the hatch and then we had a brief walk to the Hautviller's Abbey where Dom Perignon served until his death in 1715.  It was a very old church and quite interesting to compare to all the monumental churches we have been to on our travels.  Also interesting was the American woman from our group who was obviously quite religious and at one stage I thought she was going to break out into a full blown song and dance, allelujah!

after our second champagne 'tasting' session, it felt like we had drank all of these bottles ourselves!

grave of Dom Perignon

We then hopped back in the van and headed back to Epernay and that was the end of the tour, a pretty good day so far, but plenty more to come!

Although we had already been to the Mercier champagne house earlier that morning, we only saw the huge barrel and had not properly toured the cellars not had we tasted any of their champagne!

main roundabout in Epernay - Place du Champagne 

From the huge vat displayed at the 1889 World Exhibition, to hot-air ballon rides over Paris in the Mercier Balloon in 1900, to the Mercier truck that followed the Tour De France in the 1930's to the 'champagne rally' in 1950, Eugene Mercier was a pioneer of modern commerce and rapidly gained public attention through these various methods of high-impact advertising.  

In the 1870's Eugene Mercier had a total of 47 tunnels covering 18km's excavated some 30m below the streets of Epernay which became the cellars to house the many thousands of ageing bottles of champagne.

In 1950, Jacques Mercier, carrying on from his grandfather's legacy, organised a "champagne rally" with Renault to mark the launch of the 4 CV Renault model.  This most spectacular stage took place along all 18km of the Mercier cellars and even more impressively, not a single bottle of sparkling was smashed in the process!

We were lucky enough to have a tour through these cellars on board a laser-guided train which took us past thousands of bottles of champagne, all waiting to be popped at the next party!  For a second time we were also taken through the whole champagne production process, it almost sunk in, but I was certainly still a little confused by it all.

Mercier cellars, 30m underground

Continuing on with the theme of the day, we were then escorted back up to the surface and into the bar where we had another 3 different glasses of bubbly.  Fair to say by this stage we were feeling the effects, but we were still with it enough to appreciate the quality of the champagne we were drinking, it was easily the best we had drunk so far.

listening to the bird explain the difference between the three glasses we had

Dad couldn't help himself but buy a bottle (regular size!) on the way out and we walked out the door with one more stop to come.  Personally I was wondering how I could possibly have any more champagne, but I was ready for the challenge!  Anna being a fairly light drinker was managing remarkably well.

The Mercier mansion was located at the top end of Avenue du Champagne, so we had to basically walk the length of the street before we reached our final stop.  There were so many amazing buildings on the way down that must be worth a ridiculous amount of money, scary to think actually.

Our final stop was the MoeT & Chandon house, saving the best for last!

outside the M&C courtyard which backs onto Avenue du Champagne 

the M&T courtyard from the inside

As soon as we walked in the front door, we could smell the money.  Chandeliers everywhere (including one made out of champagne glasses!), expensive furniture, polished marble floors, heaps of I'm assuming expensive artwork and all the staff dressed impeccably.

MoeT & Chandon is the world's largest champagne producer and even holds a 'Royal Warrant' to supply champagne to Queen Elizabeth II.  M&C was established in 1743 by Claude MoeT and today it owns more than 1,000 hectares of vineyards, and annually produces approx. 26,000,000 bottles!

The reign of King Louis XV coincided with increased demand for M&C and soon after M&C's foundation, their clientele included many nobles and aristocrats.  However, the company truly attracted a loyal international following after it initiated an account with Napoleon in 1804.  Nowadays, M&C is easily the most recognised champagne brand in the world, in fact we were told that one bottle of MoeT & Chandon is popped somewhere in the world every 2 seconds!!!

Claude MoeT

The first part of our tour was an interesting short video about the brand and just to brag about how much money they have, Scarlett Johansson was the narrator!

                                    

It was then down into Epernay's underground to walk around part of M&C's 28km legendary subterranean labyrinth and for the third time we were told about the whole champagne production process, from when the vines are planted, to when the cork is popped.  This time it finally sank in and now I am confident I could tell anyone about how the whole process works!

It was literally unbelievable to see how many bottles there were down there and also to think that every bottle of M&C champagne that has ever been popped at any Australian event, whether it is someone's party, or the Melbourne Cup, was down in these cellars.

There was one "street" that was particularly special as there was a plaque that tells that on 26 July 1807, Emperor Napoleon I visited this cave and ended up staying in the M&C guest house across the road!

Each section of bottles had a plate with strange letters and numbers on it. The plate encodes which champagne is on the corresponding stand, from which year and from which region and it also notes how many bottles there are.  Hard to imagine, but in the photo below, there are 20,720 bottles ageing!

the "riddling" process - these bottles are being slightly turned and tilted each day for 6-8 weeks

The final part of our tour through the caves lead us through the Dom Perignon area.  As mentioned above, Dom Perignon is a very important pioneer in the first development of Champagne and as such, M&C have named one of their labels after him.

The Dom Perignon champagne is a vintage champagne, meaning that it is only made in the best year, and all grapes used to make the wine were harvested in the same year.  By contrast, most other champagnes are non-vintage, meaning they were made from grapes harvested in various years.

The last time a Dom Perignon was released was in the year 2000 and as only 5 million bottles are produced in each vintage, this makes each bottle very bloody expensive!!

Dom Perignon bottles ageing under the watchful eye of the Virgin Mary

Walking the MoeT & Chandon cellars was the highlight of the day!

Obviously after hearing so much about this remarkable brand, we needed to sample the goods to see what all the fuss was about.  I didn't think I would be able to notice any difference, but you really could, it was all mighty fine stuff.

Another 3 or so different glasses tasted which made it 11 or 12 for the day!

Nabuchodonosor (15L), Balthazar (12L), Salamanazar (9L), Mathusalem (6L), Jeroboam (3L)

Anna and I were both tempted to buy something from the M&C store as a souvenir, but with all the champagne we had drank, we were finding it a little difficult to work out what it was we were looking at, so we thought it best to leave before we did something silly like knock over a 2,000 euro bottle like the Nabuchodonosor above!

We were all horrified to note that it was after 4pm and we had not eaten a single thing since breakfast, no wonder we were half pissed!  Hoeing into a big juicy hamburger and fries seemed like a fantastic idea at the time and we all loved every scrap of it, but about 10 minutes later we all wished we had just waited until dinner!

We resorted to our rooms for a few hours and I'm pretty sure Anna and I both fell asleep, I can't really remember.  I do remember having a splitting headache as we went out for dinner that night and after the huge day we had, dinner was a somber affair at a nothing special type restaurant before hitting the sack.

It had been a ripper of a day, we saw some amazing things, drank some great champagne and I think most importantly we learnt a great deal which will stay with us forever and I'm sure we'll be correcting anyone from now on who doesn't pronounce the T haha!

The next day the weather turned to shit, but thank god that it hadn't been like that for our tour!
Funnily enough, after breakfast we went to the town of Reims, which included the brilliant Notre Dame de Reims, so we really could thank god that it didn't rain the day before.

Anna and I have seen so many churches this year that we really should be getting sick of them (well we kind of actually are), but this one was super impressive with its gothic statues that laced the exterior.  I was particularly excited by the gargoyles that had water coming out their mouths, as they were acting as drain pipes, pretty clever!!

reminds me of a scene from Dumb & Dumber - "his head fell off"

Interestingly, Reims played a prominent ceremonial role in French monarchical history as the traditional site of the crowning of the Kings of France.  The Notre Dame de Reims played the same role in France as Westminster Abbey has in the UK.

The rain got heavier and heavier as we searched for a suitable coffee place and by the time we finally sat down, we were ringing ourselves out, not happy!  Thankfully the rain stopped long enough for us to walk around town a little bit and then head back to Epernay.

                                     

M & D were staying in Epernay another night, however Anna and I left in the mid-afternoon for Paris to meet up with Leigh and Brooke.  We had been looking forward to seeing them for a very long time, so we were super excited for a good night out on the town and then plenty of fun the following day.