Tag: Champagne

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Champagne at Thanksgiving…continued

Time to find a place to stay:

Reims seemed to be an obvious choice. Big name Champagne houses in town, five main wine producing areas nearby, and close enough to small villages with their own Champagne houses, this fit the bill.

Since we were only going to be there 10 days, I decided to focus on three of those five main wine producing areas. Thes five regions include Montagne de Reims, Vallee de la Marne, Cote des Blancs, Cote des Bar, and Cote de Sezanne.

Montagne de Reims is known for Pinot Noir grapes. We could find the towns and villages of Mailly, Verzenay, and Verzy.

Grapes grown in the Vallee de la Marne are Pinot Meunier and are centered mostly around Epernay and Ay.

Cote des Blancs is known for its Chardonnay grapes, The villages of Avize, Cramant, and Chouilly,

Pinot Noir and some Chardonnay in the hills can be found in the Cote des Bar region.

Much smaller in size in the Cote de Sezanne region where you will find both Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. These tend to be fruit forward in taste.

When we travel, we like to stay in apartments instead of hotels. Nothing against hotels. But, staying in a space like an apartment gives us more options. We can eat breakfast or snacks in our own space, put a bottle or two of Champagne in the refrigerator for later, do some laundry if we need to, and have more space to spread out.

Since we travel a lot, I spend quite a bit of time searching rentals from Airbnb, VRBO, and any other vacation rental companies I find. This time there was just my husband and me so I searched for a one bedroom, one bathroom apartment with a washer close to the main area in Reims. Keep in mind when renting an apartment in Europe, bathrooms can mean different things than we might assume here in the US. If you like a shower, make sure that is specifically listed. If you prefer a tub, look for that.

Reminder…When looking for an apartment with two bathrooms, check to see how many toilets (water closets) are listed. If the listing doesn’t specifically say, check the photos carefully. We’ve thought we had two toilets when we traveled with my brother and sister-in-law only to find out the listing that said two complete bathrooms did not actually include two toilets. Yes, it had two showers and two sinks but only one toilet. Had we looked at all the photos carefully, we would have seen their two pictures of toilets were actually the some one just photographed from different angles.

In Reims we ended up with an amazing apartment that included a parking garage. Our host spoke no English and my French is fairly weak. I’m much better at reading it than speaking! We made it work by translating through an app. He met us on a side street as the street where we were staying had bollards. We needed a card to scan as we entered the street so the bollards could descend into the street and we could drive through.

The apartment could not have been better. Spacious and well equipped, we could have easily stayed for a month instead of nine days! Location was perfect with walking distance to everything we needed. I’ve tried to book this apartment a second time but it was already booked. I can definitely see why. It’s one of the best places we have stayed.

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Champagne at Thanksgiving…part 2

Learning about Champagne:

Homework Time…

I learned that different champagnes are defined by their grape varietals and sweetness levels. There is also the difference of whether they are vintage or non-vintage. Champagnes are also categorized by their color, including white, rosé, and even black or “noir” varieties. Their color, like all still wines, comes from the skins of the grape and how long the juice is left with those skins.

In addition, the specific blend of grapes (even grapes from different years), the amount of added sugar (dosage), and whether the champagne is a single vintage or a blend from multiple years determines its unique character. 

So, how many different styles of Champagne can there be? Quite a few. This is what I learned.

Chardonnay grapes provide a crisp Champagne. You could even taste citrus. Usually these Champagnes age well. These grapes are white or light skinned.

Pinot Noir grapes tend to produce a fruitier flavor, especially in the Montagne de Reims region. These are black skinned grapes.

Pinot Meunier grapes often yield a bolder flavor. These are also black sinned grapes.

Now to find what grapes are used to make each type of Champagne.

Blanc de Blancs is a white Champagne made exclusively from Chardonnay grapes. Always. Only Chardonnay grapes are used in Blanc de Blancs.

Blanc de Noirs is a white Champagne made only from black grapes. These can be from Pinot Noir or Pinot Meunier. No Chardonnay grapes here.

Rose Champagne is created by adding a small amount of red wine to the white wine.

Stay tuned…

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Champagne at Thanksgiving

Six Months Prior to Thanksgiving…

When my husband asked if I wanted Champagne at Thanksgiving, of course I said yes. Then, he asked if we should go to the Champagne area in France for Thanksgiving. Once more, my answer was yes.

Frist order of business: buy tickets.

I searched airline websites, Google, Kayak, and anywhere else I could think of. This is my usual method to find the best tickets for prices, times, seat selection, non-stop versus direct, layovers, etc. Air France met my criteria except for one thing. We live in San Diego and would need to drive to Los Angeles to get the best prices and times. That meant getting a one-way rental car to get to LA and one to get back to San Diego.

In the past, one-way car rentals have been quite reasonably priced. Often I could find one for under $100, many times closer to $50. This time they were slightly higher but still cost effective. Drive time needed to be factored in as well. Again, in the past, if we left at the right time we could make it to LAX in a reasonable amount of time. (stay tuned for what we ACTUALLY spent and how long it took us!)

Flights booked, rental cars booked…next a place to stay. Time to decide where to stay in Champagne. We had been in the area previously but knew we wanted to do a more in-depth trip this time. Therefore, I decided to learn a little more about Champagne itself and maybe that would help me narrow down the town we wanted as our base.

Where do we taste Champagne. What villages do we go to. How should we structure our days? After all, according to Champagne, France, there are over 16,000 growers, 125 cooperatives, and 390 houses. Whew! Where do we start?

I’ll let you know if the next issue…

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Pommery Champagne House

Pommery Champagne House

Not only does Pommery produce an amazing dry Champagne, the history surrounding Madame Pommery is truly an interesting aspect of this house.

She was one of the great Champagne widows of the 19th century. She is the one you can credit with bring the sweeter sparkling wines to a dryer Champagne. Pommery was born in 1819 and married into a prominent wool family in Reims, France. Once her two sons were born, her husband left the wool industry and dived into the wine business. Two years later, he died. She was only 38 years old.

At that point she decided to carry on with his wine business, changing the business plan fairly quickly from red wines to sparkling wines. She had the uncanny ability to see that the English market would take a liking to delicate, fine, dry Champagne. And, it did.

Ahead of her time, she created Pommery Nature in 1874, the first brut Champagne that had major commercial success. In 1868 she decided to relocate to a different place and launched the “construction site of the century” in Reims. She used the crayeres chalkpits as wine cellars. French and Belgian miners had dug into the earth an interconnected set of tunnels.

Today, the variety of grapes used, the quality of the harvest, the selection of vintages for blends, and the time spent ageing in the cellar all add to the special flavors of Pommery Champagne.

So many processes and procedures go into making this Champagne, with oenologists and the Cellar Master testing the entire way. This ensures Pommery’s distinctive aroma, flavor, and quality will be there in every bottle.

Take a tour, taste the Champagne, and do not miss the lower level of galleries. The staircase alone is amazing if not monumental. With 116 steps down is the only connection to the lower level of caves from the main level.

Art, sculptures, and rotating exhibits are tastefully arranged throughout the lower level. The Pommery Champagne house is not only a feast for your mouth…it’s a feast for your eyes as well.

Cheers!

If You Go: Pollery is located at 5 Place du General Gouraud, Reims, France

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Cossy Champagne…Definitely a Favorite

Cossy Champagne

The Cossy estate is based in the 1er Cru village of Jouy-lès-Reims – just a few minutes outside of the center of Reims, and dates to 1764. They started bottling under their own label in the 1950s, in addition to managing the Cooperative winemaking facility for their village and the neighboring hamlet of Pargny-lèsReims.

Sophie’s wines all clearly have a graceful, feminine touch. They are all from her estate vineyards within a kilometer or two of the winery, so they’re all from essentially the same terroir.

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Ruinart Champagne

The House of Ruinart is unlike any other. It was the first established House of Champagne in 1729 and inspired by the intuition of a monk well ahead of his time.

Chardonnay is the very soul of Ruinart. The grape, mainly harvested from the Côte des Blancs and Montagne de Reims terroirs, is at the heart of all our cuvées.

A unique part of our visit included a tour of the crayères, or chalk galleries, classified as a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 2015. It’s hard to describe the feeling when you know you are 125 feet down into the earth with the silent chalk surrounding you.

Vaulted ceilings and large galleries, the crayères almost remind you of being in a cathedral where you really should be quiet. The only other souls we saw were rows upon rows of bottles. Probably millions. Not a bad sight.

The cool, dark crayeres are lit by spot lights in a few places. Other times, light comes in from a hole far above you.

Centuries of graffiti are carved into the walls, bearing names, doodles, and even tiny altars with crosses.

The blend for Blanc de Blancs

The blend is 100% Chardonnay from various years (20 to 25% of which are reserve wines from the 2 previous years).

A large majority of Premiers Crus from the Côte des Blancs and Montagne de Reims vineyards for aromatic refinement, supplemented by Sézannais wines known to provide maturity. Finally, several wines from the north of the Vesle valley give a light, fresh touch.

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Epernay, France

Home to the great wine production and trading houses, and listed as a Remarkable Site of Taste, the majestic Avenue de Champagne has 110 kilometres of cellars.

The first Champagne House opened in Epernay in 1729, founded by Nicolas Ruinart, a draper at the time, who wanted to try his hand at producing sparkling wine.

Other establishments would also set up on Avenue de Champagne (in particular Moët & Chandon, in 1743). The Avenue de Champagne, previously known as Rue du Commerce, became an important economic hub in the 19th century and other Champagne Houses followed: Perrier Jouët, de Venoge, Mercier, etc.

In February 1925, the Rue du Commerce became the Avenue de Champagne.

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Troyes and its Many Cathedrals

Troyes is a renaissance city in the south part of the Champagne region with many cathedrals. Several things grabbed our attention as we first read about the city and then as we wandered along the streets.

The half-timbered houses are not the typical white with brown timbers. These are multi-colored houses. There was a fire in 1524, which destroyed almost the entire city. When the houses were rebuilt, colors were used on the houses and buildings. It makes for a pretty historic center.

Then there are the cathedrals. Troyes has eleven cathedrals. That’s right…11 cathedrals in one city. We had time to visit five. Each of the Troyes cathedrals is special. Each one has its own special windows and features. I have never seen so much stained glass. I have never seen such a variety of stained-glass windows.

The first Troyes Cathedral was started in the 13th century and completed over 400 years later. You might think this would make for a jumbled mess of design. It doesn’t. It is entirely Gothic throughout. This is considered one of the most beautiful churches in all of Europe.

Walking into the spacious nave, we could only stand and stare. Light engulfed us as it streamed in through more than 1,500 square meters of stained glass. That is over 16,000 square feet. That’s a lot of stained glass.

Some of these windows date back to the 1200s.

There are three huge rose windows, each over 30 feet across. We often see one impressive one. But, three? They were all designed by Martin Chambiges, a renaissance architect. So many colors and light. As I kept looking at one of the windows, I felt like I could be in a kaleidoscope. The colors changed, the shapes jumped out at me, and the light continued to radiate.

Eglise Sainte-Madeleine is probably the oldest church in Troyes. Some say it is the most beautiful.

Construction dates from 1120, being rebuilt around 1200 in a Gothic style. The apse and choir were renovated around 1500 in a more flamboyant Gothic style. The square Renaissance looking tower was added in 1525.

One of the most impressive parts is its famous rood screen. A rood screen is an elevated stone gallery between the nave and the choir. It has room for a choral group or officiating priests. This was originally wooden. Replaced with a stone one, it has the look of lace. And, it did look like lace. It was hard to believe it was stone. Only about a dozen religious buildings in France still have a rood screen.

In addition, the apse’s stained-glass windows are colorful story-telling examples. The Tree of Jesse, The Genesis, and The Pearls of Saint Eloi are some of the best we have seen. Unlike others, the stories presented are easy to follow.

Don’t let the outside fool you into thinking the inside will be plain. Not the case.

The Basilica of Saint Urbain was commissioned by the 13th century Pope Urbain IV, who was born in Troyes. He had it built on the site where his shoemaker father had his workshop.

This one includes stained glass windows from the 13th century and a large amount of historic art.

There are more…you will just have to see them for yourself.

If You Go: Troyes is located about two hours southeast of Paris. Check out other amazing parts of Troyes in Travels and Escapes