We stayed in Epernay for 2 nights and visited two big champagne houses. Moet & Chandon had a very professional tour through the caves and the tasting session was by far the best and slickest we experienced. And yes you do pronounce the 't'! After a long lunch we went to the very commercial Mercier - apparently France's favourite drop but I don't know why - and then on to dinner.
The highlight of the tour
Down in the cellar
Epernay is a nice little town and definitely makes a good base for the area (we stayed at B&B Le Clos Raymi).
Avenue de Champagne, Epernay
Breakfast from the local market (Dave & I practised our French buying fruit)
On Sunday we drove through the vineyards along the Champagne Route and a stopped in a couple of the smaller towns - Hautvillers and Ay are charming. The drive was was very pretty with all of the villages nestled into the hills and surrounded by acres and acres of vines. If you get the timing right you can pop into many of the smaller family run producers. We sipped our way through all of the bottles on offer at a tasting of Taittinger which was fun, and took a tour of Pommery, another large house. By this point we were 'toured' out as they tend to repeat the same story - how it's made with three varieties of grape, the fermentation and cellaring process, as well as the history of the house.
All those vineyards to visit...
We stayed in Reims on the last night. It's the largest city in the area and though it has a few shops and a noteworthy cathedral, I'd give it a miss and stay small and authentic. On our way back to London via Paris we squeezed in a pique-nique in Jardin de Luxembourg in Paris!
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