Chamagne

So after Paris we got on a train to Epernay which is the capital of Champagne or so they say. We dropped our bags at the B&B we were staying at and went straight over to the Avenue de Champagne which is a street where a lot of the champagne producers are located.

Here's me outside Moet & Chandon with my good mate Dom...

In Champagne you usually have to do a tour before you can taste any of the good stuff so we chose to do a tour at Mercier. It was €16.50 and that included the tour and 3 tastings. The Moet & Chandon one was €26 with 2 tastings!

Here's a picture of Mr Mercier who I thought looked rather like Dr Phil!

We watched a fairly crappy video and then we went down to the cellars and got on a train! Yes a train. It was laser guided so there were no rails on the ground. It was quite cool. Here's a picture...

After that we went to Comtesse Lafond. This was our favourite by far. The Extra Brut was probably one of the best champagnes I've ever had. Here's a picture outside...

And here's one of the Rose. And guess what, you can't buy it outside of France. Typical!

After that we went to a champagne bar in town. We got some champagne and were given these with the drinks. I can honestly say I've never eaten a marshmallow while drinking champagne before. Weird but kinda good.

The next day we went on a day trip to Reims (pronounced Rance for some weird reason). They are also one of the big champagne producing places. It was a much bigger place and we weren't very succesful in tasting there. We did one tour at Tattinger but the rest you had to make appointments for and there is only so many times you can do a tour of cold cellars and learn about the process of making champagne.

The final day we spent in Epernay again. We went to one of the smaller producers Janisson Baradon and did some tastings there. The only problem (for me) was that the lady only spoke French. Nate had a good old chat with her though and translated for me. Regardless the champagne was good and we bought a bottle to enjoy at our B&B. That's ours in the middle...

And here's a picture I took while we were enjoying our champagne. This was the back of the B&B and that's a Belgian kid that was staying there. It was a beautiful place.

This is the view from our upstairs window on the first day...

And this is the view on the third day. The weather obiously got much better.

Oh yeah and here's a pig's head that I saw in the local charcuterie where we picked up some pate made from 4 different animal's livers - yum. The pate that is, not the pig's head.


More pictures here