Day 67- 21 October 2008
Today was my day trip to Champagne. The morning started off very early at 6am and after a few hours of driving we reached the champagne house of GH Mumm. A short video about the vineyards and then we were off 14 metres underground to visit the GH Mumm cellars which are tunnels dug into the chalk ground under the streets of Reims which run for many many kilometres. There were bottles stacked every where, so much champagne at different stages of the process. Bottles are stored for 3 years for a normal brut, 4 to 14 years for a vintage and there are some bottles from the original productions in the 1900's. At the end of the tour it was time for a tasting of their Brut GH Mumm flagship champagne. Well, all i can say is that its no spumante or tropicana!!
From there we headed to Rheims cathedral which is gothic and has some very impressive stained glass windows (like every other church in paris).
Then it was time for a spot of lunch of baguettes and then we went to Epernay about 50 minutes ago and were at Moet & Chandon. We went for a cellar tour of a small part of the 14 years and got to learn about how champagne is made. At the end of the tour it was time for a tasting of their Moet & Chandon Imperial Brut flagship champagne.
Moet is also the home of Dom Perignon who is supposedly the founder of champagne.
After tasting some of the best sparkling wine that the champagne region has on offer, it is no suprise why they keep their name "champagne" so tightly held. Its probable that my now developed palate will be unable to cope with the australian and other miscelaneous inferior sparkling wines again...
Saluat !!
After my return to Paris, i went on the search for the two pyramids which are opposing each other that feature in the Da Vince code movie which are near the Louvre and for which i was unable to find the other day during my visit to the louvre. Thankfully after much detective work i found them.
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