Paris to Champagne

Our last night in Paris was at a top floor (level 8) restaurant, where we could enjoy the sight of Paris at night. Our days have been grey and the light flat, so seeing the city crouching in the dark with its many magnificent buildings spotlit was a treat. The Eiffel Tower was true to form with a loud display of flashing lights but no doubt it would be spectacular up close. A long and large dinner awash with terrific wines. In the morning we drove to Reins, in The Champagne region. Reins is pronounced 'Ranz', but well ladled with rolling r's and nasal nuances. Barely recognizable versus it's written form! The drive out of Paris was a goodbye to the lovely Seine and city centre, back out through the industrial suburbs then into green countryside. The flat land became more rolling, in very broad but low hills. This became more striking as we approached Reins. It's a distinctive landscape that is like the swell on the open ocean. Very attractive wih pasture, crops, and occassional woodlands on the hill caps and elsewhere. We were also enchanted by roadside areas thick with red poppies in flower. Periodic farmsteads of high sided, small windowed slate roofed buildings but otherwise mostly open pasture. Then in the distance an occassional village of tightly clustered tiled buildings. As Reins approached the soil became noticeably whiter, where exposed. Chalk! We checked in to our tiny roomed Reins hotel then over the road for lunch before the first visit of the day to the Gardet Champagne House - a mid sized privately owned operation. We had our first look at the very detailed process of making the wine, including vinification of the dozens and sometimes hundreds of separate parcels of grapes coming from the growers around the district and supplied under contract. Reins is 'like a cheese' we were told, with several hundred kms of cellars and passages cut under the district. Down in these cellars the bottles of champagne age in spectacular orderly stacks. Garde is in a tiny village called 'Chigny les Roses', on the outskirts of the city. What a darling place of old houses and narrow streets. We thought of our very own Chigny le Rose! On the surface the Champagne houses might not be much to go on but you forget what lies underground! That night we visited a restaurant in an adjoining town, our first Michelin star location. A beautiful old building full of oak floors and furniture, and then the dinner commenced. A degustation styled meal with an endless flow of tiny dishes, often 2 or 3 bought together in seamless service. We kept menu as there is just no other way to describe it than than produce of the region prepared to an exceptional standard and different Champagnes at every stage of the meal, from start to end. The next day got serious, and by 10 am we were in the House of Krug, sipping maybe the most famous Champagne in the world. We were in awe of their underground cellars as a 20 something young lady, dressed up including heels, took us through the process and talked about how they define and create their wine style. Krug Grand Cuvée is a blend of 120 wines, ranging over 12 vintages with the oldest components being typically 20 years old, on release. We finished with another tasting in their beautiful drawing room, library and tasting room complex. A walk through Reins to a local restaurant, and lunch of fois gras, poached cod and then a melted Camembert wrap of some sort. You know how it is having wine for lunch not to mention breakfast, the wheels fall off a bit in the afternoon. That's how it was so we decided to walk to the Cathedral that centers the city. It was a highlight of the Reins visit, as we wandered, breathless, around the old building where French Kings were crowned for a thousand years. Rebuilt again in gothic style, it froths with extravagant vaulted architecture and detail, not unlike Notre Dame. This church is in poorer condition with greenery on the roof on one corner and inside the dull walls of long occupation. But not many people around and we could walk in an almost quiet void of impossibly high arches and ceilings, stained glass and vestibules. Reins was battered during WW1 in particular - the area is full of references to it. Reins is worn but lovely, like one of the rural villages around it but on a greater scale, with a more municipal feel and wider street carriages. We returned to the hotel late afternoon and dressed for something special- a visit to Tattingers cellars, then to be driven to the Tattinger homestead in nearby Epernay. The cellars were something special, being of Roman origins and then the site of a medieval cathedral built directly overhead, now gone. But during its time the monks developed the cellar network for wine storage but also as an extension of their church. In WW2 the cellars, like many others, held soldiers and was an underground infirmary. Many local champagnes houses also stored and secretly walled in their Champagne supplies. The drive to the family homestead, called Maquetterie, bought us to an old but well maintained building on the slopes behind a village. Directly behind it was the vineyard called 'Folie de Maquetterie', being one of the Tattinger Champages. We enjoyed a superb evening of dinner service and champagne, in this incredible old building that is how ever many hundreds of years old. I got up at intervals to walk the gardens around the house, ringed by a high stone wall with the occassionally narrow gateway where you stepped out into the sea of vineyards of closely spaced and low pruned grape vines. Home by about midnight, for third night in a row, and barely remember lying down.