Champagne for Wandering Educators

The closest wine region to Paris, home of the most famous sparkling wines in the world, the Champagne area is somewhere that every wine lover should visit once. This fascinating region in eastern France is renowned not so much for its gentle vineyard landscapes, but more for the endless miles of deep cellars that have been carved into the soft limestone rocks and provide the perfect ageing environment for the many millions of bottles of Champagne  that need to be stored.

The two major Champagne centres are Reims, a city famous not just for Champagne but for its spectacular cathedral, and Epernay, a much smaller and quieter town that owes its existence to Champagne Houses such as Moët & Chandon and Pol Roger (Winston Churchill’s favourite Champagne). Both Reims and Epernay have many Champagne Houses (some wine producers are so grand in Champagne that they are traditionally referred to as ‘Houses’) open to visitors, usually by advanced reservation and with a charge. A tour can be fascinating as you not only learn about the process of making Champagne, but see some of the longest and most dramatic wine cellars in the world – just be careful not to get lost, you might think it would be fun, but even today, sleeping Champagne may be explosive!

To see the vineyards you need to travel outside of Reims and Epernay – indeed, especially if you have more than a day or two to spare, some of the more interesting places to stay and eat are in the countryside. You will also find much smaller, family-owned Champagne producers (known often as ‘growers’ to differentiate from the ‘houses’) to visit. Wine Travel Guides has three micro-region guides to Champagne, one focuses on the area around Reims, a second around Epernay and the final one explores the Aube district. Quite a drive further south near the city of Troyes, the Aube is often forgotten about by Champagne lovers, but the most recent update of our guide shows that there are more and more interesting producers and restaurants to visit and here you will also find a great example of La France Profonde (deepest France).

One of the world’s most famous Champagne specialist writers, Tom Stevenson, originally wrote our guides and after his long experience visiting the region, really brought it to life in his writing. Tom is the brains behind the annual Wine Report (sadly not to be published in 2010) to which I’m a contributor. The guides have recently been updated by another great British wine writer, who was once a hotel inspector, Michael Edwards. Michael’s currently putting the final touches to a book on Champagne growers so I was delighted when he added a few interesting family-owned Champagne producers to the recommendations. Here’s a couple of excerpts from the guides:

AROUND REIMS: “Reims is home to the majority of the most famous Champagne houses (Veuve Clicquot, Taittinger, Roederer, Ruinart, Charles and Piper Heidsieck et al), but they are so spread out that you will need a taxi or car to get about. Only in Reims will you find the deep, dark cellars called crayères (literally chalk-pits), vast Gallo-Roman caverns that were hewn out of the solid limestone subsoil to provide building materials for the construction of the city. As serendipity would have it, their constant low temperature (10-11°C) and relatively high humidity (80-100%) proved ideal for storing Champagne some 15 centuries later, so the Champenois connected the crayères by a labyrinth of tunnels to form cellars.”

AROUND EPERNAY: “Venturing out of the town, some of the finest vineyards can be visited by car within half an hour. The historic bourg of Aÿ, the cradle of Pinot Noir is just a short distance across the Marne, its steep south-facing slopes produce the base for the most sumptuous Champagne cuvées, epitomised in the great blends of famous houses like Bollinger and Deutz. Around Epernay itself and westwards along the Marne as far as Dormans lie prime spots for the Pinot Meunier grape, a key ingredient in the Champagnes of such 'classics' as Billecart-Salmon, Krug and Pol Roger. Just south of Epernay, the 20-kilometre long lozenge-shaped hillside of the Côte de Blancs is home to superbly crystalline, mineral-charged Chardonnay.”

One of France’s most famous politicians of the 20th century, Charles de Gaulle, is buried in the Aube, in the village of Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises. As well as paying your respects you can indulge yourselves by spending a night in a recently refurbished hotel and restaurant in the town – Hostellerie La Montagne, described by Michael as follows: “Jean Baptiste Natali has created a restaurant, which enhances the modern style of his cuisine. With Mediterranean influences gleaned from his time working at the Palme d’Or in Cannes, you might enjoy, for example fillets of John Dory with poivrade of aubergines and rillettes of turtle. In autumn, partridge and pigeon are transformed into wonders of modern cuisine, Exceptional wine list including great Champagnes and Burgundies. Deft, elegant service by a young team and sumptuous rooms to retreat to after dinner.” The following morning you could pop into one of the largest and best Champagne producers in the Aube, the family owned Drappier that offers some excellent quality bubblies produced in a traditional cellar – don’t forget to call first for an appointment.

Reims is only an hour by train from Paris or a little longer by car. Epernay is just a little further and for the Aube count on at least another hour. A visit to the region is well worth fitting into your next trip to France. To subscribe to Wine Travel Guides and make the most of Tom and Michael’s insider information, don’t forget to use the discount offered especially to visitors to Wandering Educators.

Wink Lorch is the Wine Editor for Wandering Educators