I love champagne and I can always find a reason to pop open a bottle. Having a bad day? Bubblies will cheer you up! Had a great day? Champagne is the perfect way to celebrate. Of course when I discovered that Helene was offering a tour of a few champagne houses, I jumped at the chance to go - even dragged my parents along on their last day in Paris!
We visited Pommery, Moët et Chandon, and a small artisanal producer Briaux Lenique. And learned a great deal about champagne.
The process is amazing but I really lack the expertise to go into detail here - suffice to say there are grapes, they are pressed, sugar and yeast are added to the juice, it ferments, magic happens and VOILA, champagne! If you really want to learn more, please research it, the entire process is fascinating.
Champagne is made from either chardonnay, pinot noir grapes or both. If the wine is solely chardonnay then it is called "blanc et blanc" and is delicious!
We visited Pommery, Moët et Chandon, and a small artisanal producer Briaux Lenique. And learned a great deal about champagne.
The process is amazing but I really lack the expertise to go into detail here - suffice to say there are grapes, they are pressed, sugar and yeast are added to the juice, it ferments, magic happens and VOILA, champagne! If you really want to learn more, please research it, the entire process is fascinating.
Champagne is made from either chardonnay, pinot noir grapes or both. If the wine is solely chardonnay then it is called "blanc et blanc" and is delicious!
Pommery is one of the few champagne houses that was built into it's current success by a woman - Louise Pommery. She took over the business when her husband died in 1860. It is now currently owned by LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy). She started the trend of carving out caves from the chalky limestone underneath the city of Reims to store and age the wine. It's perfect because the caves stay cold and damp -
the picture below shows how the sediment falls to the bottom of the bottle - they then slowly rotate and tilt the bottle until it reaches the neck. Then the bottle is flash frozen and opened so they can get that gunk out! The sediment naturally occurs from the interaction of yeast and sugar - part of the magic that creates champagne
Of course the best tour was saved for last and deserves an entry all by its self!