@ Paris : Bubbles

August 2nd, 2007

Today we got up early and had a exquisite breakfast again then got in a mini van type vehicle to tour the Champaign Valley. It was a 2 hour drive to the Reims where we stopped and looked at one of the oldest and most important Cathedrals in all of Europe. Notre Dame de Reims (the one in paris is Notre Dame de Paris) has over 2,500 statues and is absolutely beautiful. The church was mostly destroyed by the Germans during the war and has since been in a constant state of construction to try and restore it’s original splendor. The stained glass windows in the back of the cathedral were re-designed and created by Marc Chagall (famous abstract painter). Pictures are on flickr.

We then moved on to the Champaign Valley. There are 138,000,000 bottles of champaign produced every year in this valley and this valley alone. 70% by a few huge companies and the rest by 1000’s of small families. We visited a small and large winery on our tour.
This valley is the only place that “Champaign” can be produced. Some sparkling wine is made in California by the same process but since it is not from this valley it can not be called Champaign. Wine can not be produced in this valley either, they seem have very strict guidelines on where certain things can be made. There is a small amount of red wine that is produced to add to the champaign to make a rose champaign but the wine is not marketed by itself.

Dom Perignon was a monk in the small town where we visited the small winery, and he is credited with creating champaign. In this town there is an old church/monastary in which he was monk and he is buried at the front of the church. We stopped at this church and looked around it was kind of creepy. They had some relics there in boxes, these relics were the bones of some saint. It is odd to look into a box and see a human skull looking back at you. From this small town we then went to visit one of the largest producers of champaign in the valley. We took a tour of their cellars and learned all about the process. This is the company (Moet & Chandon) that makes “Dom Perignon” champaign and produces millions of bottles of champaign every year.

Champaign is a mixture of 2-3 types of grapes, pinot noir, pinot meunier and chardonay. Mixed in different proportions each champaign house has a different taste. But unlike wine the traditional champaign from each house(company) is supposed to taste the same from year to year. Traditional champaign does not have a year on the label because it is not a vintage where as all wine is a vintage. Champaign receives a vintage only if it is an exceptionally good year for the grapes and they use better juice in the vintage champagnes than in the traditional champagnes. So you may only produce a vintage champagne every 5-10 years. “Dom Perignon” is always a vintage, so not produced every year and uses just pinot noir and chardonay grapes. It also ages in the cellars for 8-10 years. The traditional only ages for a total of 4 years before it is released. It was a very interesting day. I’m tired of typing and you’re tired of reading so if you have any questions ask them in the comments or when we get home and I’ll do my best to explain more.

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