Reims rhymes with France

 

Folłowing our return from Le Canadia, we spent another cheeky night in Paris (we had grand plans but were completely jetlagged so basically slept!) before heading north to a lovely little airport called Bllecch*, to await the arrival of Patrick, Mairead and Erin from Shannon Ireland. While we were waiting we noticed this lady, who had a stroller with not one, but three dogs dressed in t-shirts and SHORTS of all things. In case you didn't catch the irony of our renaming of the airport, this was pretty much the only charming thing in this airport, (until of course the arrival of our friends!)

*Actually called Beauvais, but it was pretty grim so we shall refer to it as Bllecch...

We jumped in our rental car and headed east to the heart of Champagne country, where we planned to spend a few days exploring the local caves and catching up with Pat and Mairead - we had never met her daughter Erin before, and Al was readying his usual bag of tricks to win over the heart of the little one. 

Things did not go to plan in this regard. While Erin LOVED Michelle - she would fetch her shoes for her if we were going out somewhere - she gave Al a wide berth and would regularly shoot him 'the eye' if he deigned to get too close. WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE? 

I'd like to report that after a few days there was a thawing in the Cold War, but nay - relations remained strained until our departure. 

Anyhow... Back to Reims. Or should we say RRRhance, which is how it's pronounced here. Like it rhymes with France. So whenever you see Reims, don't say <reeemz>, but instead say <rhans> with a nice rolling glottal rrrhhhh sound in the back of your throat followed by a nasal n sound.

Reims. 

Were you even listening to anything I just said there? Try it again. 

Reims. 

Alright, that's better. Try not to forget. 

So, what did we do in Reims? (Careful...) Well, of course we visited a cave or two. That's 'kaawve', by the way, not 'kayve'. Tricky, eh? Now, the thing about doing champagne tasting, at least with the major producers like Mumm's or Taittinger, is that you can't just lob up and do a tasting. You have to do a 'tour' of the facility, which includes visiting their underground tunnels and learning about how they make their champagne and why it's the best in the world, and then and only then, after your lips are parched from crawling on your hands and knees through the cold, dank tunnels, will they deign to pour you a glass or two of their golden sparkling goodness. 

We did the Mumm's tour, and actually it was pretty cool. Amongst other things we learned that they make 6 million bottles of Mumm's every year - all of it sourced (of course) from the vineyards in a small number of villages in the Champagne region. Six MILLION - and that's just one of the producers! They have over twenty six km of tunnels cut into the chalky underbelly of Reims to store and age the bottles, including some from the 1800's. The tasting was pretty good too - we tried three champagnes in three different styles; one made only with Chardonnay grapes (Blanc-en-blanc) which we didn't really like; one made with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes, and the third with both grapes plus a splash of Pinot Meunièr (these were more interesting). 

But as I said, although we wanted to visit a few other producers while we were there, we weren't willing to shell out 46€ per person for another 'tour', and inexplicably no one has set up a bar where you can just go and do a degustation. So we were forced to do a bit of a DIY jobbie.  

Luckily if you get of Reims and visit some of the smaller producers in the surrounding villages, you'll be able to taste to your hearts content, which we did. The only drawback of this approach is that you're unlikely to find these champagnes elsewhere in the world, so if you enjoy something you either have to load up your suitcase with bottles or just enjoy the moment. We went with the latter. We also saw the 'birthplace of champagne', aka Hautvillers (population 790), where Dom Perignon famously 'invented' champagne. He's buried right here, in a giant champagne-filled vat under the stones of this church which is what that grave marker explains.

We also had a nice picnic.

The other must-see in Reims is the cathedral, which was famously bombed by the Germans at the start of WWII, and has been undergoing renovations basically non-stop since that point. This cathedral has served as the location-de-choix for many a French king's coronation for 1000 years ever since the first King of France was crowned here, including when Charles VI with Joan of Arc there to celebrate. They also have pretty cool light show on the side of the cathedral every night.

So what did we learn from our time in Reims, aside from how to pronounce it? A couple of things, I suppose:

- There are some ridiculously expensive champagnes out there. (We rediscovered this in Paris, but more on that next time)

- Not a big fan of Bollinger's. Too frothy.

- Mumm's is OK

- Our favourite of the big producers is Taittinger. 

- We're keen to do a side by side tasting with some of the Bruts that the antipodes are producing - specifically a little ditty called Arras from Tassie. 

So after five days with Pat, Mairead and BĖBĖ where we felt like we'd picked up right where we left off in London, we bid them adieu and jumped on the TGV back to Paris for the <snif> final leg of our journey....