Wow, I just realized how many pictures there are...I'm going to try and choose the highlights.
So, we left Tuesday afternoon and arrived in Reims with enough time to walk around the city and see some of the attractions (which surprisingly didn't involve champagne!!)
Our first stop was the Carnegie museum which had spectacular art deco architechture. The chandelier in the lobby was beautiful, as well as the mosaic tile around the walls.
Next stop was the Notre Dame Cathedral. This spectacular church used to host coronations for the French royals, and contained many amazing stained glass windows and architechture.
After the church, we decided to get in the mood, and enjoyed an aperitif in the park before dinner.
The next day started bright an early with a trip to the Veuve Clicquot house. We had booked a visit, and were quite excited to get started. It was a good first visit, clear and concise, covering all the basics. Of course it finished with a tasting, of their new non-vintage rose, my favorite! We browsed through the boutique filled with assorted Clicquot merchandise before deciding to head to another house.
Heading down to the cellars
Barrels from some of the different vineyards
The most important part of the tour
Piper Heidseik was our next stop. A fellow teacher had mentioned that their tour included three glasses, and we thought that sounded good. Turns out for this tour we got to ride in our own self guided car, and were taken through a pretty cheesy audio tour of their cellars. But lets be honest. We weren't really there for the tour. We finished that visit with a tasting of their Brut, their rose and a vintage, and we enjoyed being able to compare the different varieties.
The host who took this picture almost got run over when the car started unexpectedly!
After a quick lunch, we headed for our third tour of the day. Mumm. Which we learned is actually pronounced 'Moom'. Anyway, this was my favorite visit of the whole trip. We were the only ones on our tour, and our guide was very knowledgeable. By tour number 3 you start asking questions, and she was pretty good at answering them. Mumm had an interesting period when they used ceramic casks for the ageing of the grape juice after it's been picked. All the houses now use stainless steel, but I think that Mumm was the only one that ever used ceramic. They were kind of interesting, although we never figured out why they did that. Another tasty tasting wrapped up this tour too, their blancs de blancs made with 100% chardonnay grapes, the rose and a vintage (Erik and I seemed to be fond of the many vintages we tried...)
A picnic dinner in the hotel room (couldn't find a good park) washed down with two bottles of champagne, and we were finally ready to call it a night.
That's it for today, folks! Stay tuned for more from our adventures in Champagne...
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