Debate a Bubble - Champagne News and Reviews

Nothing to do with champagne

Just for a change here's a post that has nothing to do with champagne - well, almost nothing - it took place in Champagne.

Last week a couple of friends came over to stay and one of them is a keen cycling fan so he persuaded me to go and watch the Tour De France with him.

It so happens that it was passing through Reims and Epernay this year so it was only a 30 minute drive away and off we went. Actually we went beyond Epernay to a village called Orbaye l'Abbaye to avoid the crowds and for a better view because there's a hill on the exit to the village and the riders would inevitably be going slower (a little) on this climb.

I had no idea what to expect, but I had a lot of fun and I think I could get quite interested in following the TdF in future. Got some good pictures too including one of Lance Armstrong - more by luck than judgement I have to say.

Before the riders come along there's a sort of procession by all the companies sponsoring the Tour. It's called 'La Caravanne'

They all send all sorts of weirdly decorated cars along, playing music, throwing out freebies and even spraying the crowd with water - that was the Vittel float. Here are a few photos to give you a feel of what it was like

Skoda are the official TdF car suppliers

Not this particular model, mind you.

It was really hot so a cool drink would have been good. At least this guy had a parasol.

A chicken-shaped car!

And now to the business end of things - the riders:

Lance  Armstrong and George Hincapie

The Yellow Jersey  

and last but not least, let's hear it for a courageous supporter from Australia who, on a sweltering day, was walking around in a koala outfit.

Still, coming from Australia, he probably thought it was a bit on the chilly side!

Visiting Champagne - Hautvillers and Dom Pérignon

If you ever visit Champagne you’ll quickly discover that there are hundreds of villages where champagne is made, 323 of them in fact, at least that’s the number I’ve been told.

With all these to choose from how do you decide which to visit?

Well, there’s one that you really shouldn’t miss out and that’s Hautvillers; not only is it a pretty village with a stupendous view, it also has a special place in the history of champagne because the abbey of Hautvillers, is where Dom Pérignon lived and worked

If you’re a champagne lover you will have heard of Dom Pérignon. Lots has been written about him and what he did, but for now let’s just focus on the village and the abbey.

The history of the Abbey of Hautvillers stretches back over 1300 years to its foundation some time around 650 A.D. by Bishop Nivard of Reims, grandson of King Clotaire II and nephew of another king called Dagobert – no need to remember them because they’re hardly household names these days.

Now we’ll skip forward about a thousand years during which the fortunes of the abbey ebbed and flowed many times. On at least four occasions the abbey was sacked and burned by invading armies only to be built and restored, on one occasion thanks to the financial help of no less than Catherine de Medici - talk about having friends in high places!

In 1668 a young Benectine monk named Pierre Pérignon was put in charge of the day to day running of the abbey.

Born into a staunchly middle class family, this 29 year-old was to guide the material fortunes of the abbey for the next 47 years until his death in 1715.

During the time of Dom Pérignon the abbey and especially the traditions of wine-growing and wine-making which were a fundamental part of life at the abbey as well as in the surrounding region, developed and prospered out of all recognition.

Then in 1791 in the turmoil of the French Revolution, the abbey was dissolved and its goods and possessions scattered far and wide.

It was not until 1823 that the fortunes of the abbey took a turn for the better when Pierre-Gabriel  Chandon de Brialles, son-in-law of Jean-Remy Moët, resolved to restore the famous abbey.

Thanks to Pierre-Gabriel and his descendants the abbey flourished yet again and was turned into a text-book model of good agricultural practice

History intervened yet again in the 20th century when, just as they had done in times gone by, invading armies marched across the plains of Champagne and the region was ravaged by battles once more.

Although the abbey seems to have escaped damage in the First World War, it was badly damaged during the Second World War and in 1941 the abbey and the estate were sold to Moët & Chandon who them it to this day.

When you visit Hautvillers you’ll find that the abbey is not open to the public – it’s used by Moët & Chandon for private visits, but you can visit the church next door and see the plaque in the floor that marks Dom Pérignon’s resting place.

Hautvillers has got to be one of the prettiest vilages in Champagne. It’s perched on a hillside overlooking Epernay and the Marne River below and it’s a superb view point.

Added to this the local champagne makers have made a real effort to decorate their homes with wrought irons signs above the doors.

There are a few (not many) shops and a café plus a restaurant. Last time I was in Hautvillers the café was closed and the restaurant left a little to be desired, but maybe this is splitting hairs.

The point is that Hautvillers should definitely be on your list of places in to visit Champagne.

To finish off here are a few more pictures to whet your appetite

 

Where to Eat in Champagne

You're really spoiled for choice when it comes to good restaurants in Champagne and the problem can sometimes be making a selection amongst all the possibilities.

The other thing is that some of the best restaurants can be a bit pricey to say the least, so here's a suggestion that combines the best of quality and price.

If you're into good food you may well have heard of Les Crayères: the best restaurant in Champagne and one of the most impressive too.

Set in it's own private park and surrounded by a high wall to keep out prying eyes, Les Crayères was brought to fame and 3 Michelin stars, a few years back by chef and owner Gérard Boyer.

M. Boyer passed on the reins some years back but the hotel ( yes you can stay there as well ) and restaurant are as sumptuous as ever, but there is a cost and the price tag at Les Crayères is enough to put off all but the most dedicated foodies.

In addition the atmosphere can be a bit formal too. Fine dining is a serious business in France and a proper respect for the food and wine seems de rigueur at Les Crayères.

Perhaps that's why a more relaxed and far more accessibly priced offshoot of the main restaurant was launched not so long ago.

It's called Le Jardin and not surprisingly, you can find it in a corner of the 'garden'  at Les Crayères

 The decor is clean and modern as you can tell from the outside.

There's a whole band of waiters waiting to welcome you as you go in ( wonder what the correct collective noun for waiters is) many of whom seem be to fluent in several languages. the standard of the service doesn't falter after you've taken your seat either.

All is all a very slick operation and the staff seem to be kept on their toes at all times by the manager who I saw  give a real ticking off to one poor waitress for what seemed like a very minor slip up.

 Anyway, on to the food.

 There's a reasonably priced menu for 28 euros giving you a choice of two dishes out of three: starter and main, or main and dessert. Plus of course an extensive à la carte selection.

Lots of imaginative food combinations including a dish of poached egg, butternut squash, tomatoes, cheese and ham - sort of rustic but it tasted very good indeed. The portions are quite generous too.

 As you can imagine the champagne list was extensive and it was good to see plenty of smaller growers' champagne included, notably Frank Bonville and Domaines Leclaire.

The only possible shortcoming is that there were not many champagnes available by the glass - only two that I could see: Bruno Paillard and Paul Goerg

Still for a good meal at a price that won't spoil your appetite and in an atmosphere where  you don't feel out of place having a jolly good laugh out loud, then Le Jardin is worth a visit

Back To Champagne - Come And Visit

Next week I'm off back to Champagne to live, at least for a couple of years.

I'm working on a really exciting project which I shall reveal over the coming months as it progresses, but if you like champagne then I promise you'll like this.

I'm looking forward to being in the thick of things in Champagne again and of meeting lots more of the small champagne makers who are attracting ever-more attention these days. So there'll be lots to tell you in the weeks ahead.

If you've ever thought of visiting the Champagne region then now's your chance. We'll be running special Champagne Discovery weekends several times this year  ( the first one is in March)

 http://www.maboffers.com/Champagne-House-Party-Weekend.pdf

and of course if you come during the week you'll be welcome too.

Personal guided tours, tutored tastings, great food, very comfortable accommodation  and a very warm welcome - all waiting just for you in Champagne.

You'll find more details here

http://www.madaboutbubbly.com/home-in-champagne.html

See you soon, I hope

Jiles

 

Microclimates - One of The Secrets of Champagne

It's only been a month since the harvest in Champagne, but when I was there earlier this week I was surprised by how much change there has already been in the vineyards and this gave me an interesting insight into the existence of microclimates in Champagne...

I don't know what the weather's been like where you live but I've just got back from spending a few days in our home in Champagne and the weather there was absolutely fantastic : bright blue skies and glorious sunshine with just a hint of chill in the air in the early morning and evening.

Looking at this picture you'd think that it was only just the end of summer: the leaves are still quite green and there are still plenty of them on the vines.

Walk for just a hundred yards / metres or so, and you can get quite a different impression as you'll see from the picture below.

This  picture is taken on the same day and only just a few minutes later - just the time it took me to walk from one spot to another - but you can see that  whilst there are plenty of green leaves on the vines in the background, the closest vines are quite brown already.

The different foliage in different parts of the vineyard can be explained in many ways: part of the difference can be due to the way the vines have been treated by the vignerons - the vineyard workers. Yet most of the variety is down to the small differences in microclimate from one plot of vines to another.

The variations are due to the altitude of the slope and hence the ambient temperature, sometimes it's caused by the exposure to the sun and the wind, and yet more is explained by the subtle variations in the soil.

Here's a third picture to show you all the extremes of foliage in one go. There are hardly any leaves left at all on the vines in the foreground, yet in the distance - a matter of 1 kilometre or less away - are the same green vine leaves we saw in the first picture.

All these different colours make for a spectacular view, but more than that, it brought  home to me how complex a wine champagne can be. 

99.9% of all champagne is a blend of different wines from different vineyard plots. In many cases these plots can be in different villages, often several miles from one another. It's not uncommon for a champagne to be a blend of 50, and sometimes many more, different wines.

It's the presence of so many different components in the blend that makes the art of blending such a difficult one to master, but it also means that a well-blended champagne can be a veritable treasure trove of different nuances in flavour and aroma that can reveal themselves to you with each sip from the glass.

This complexity is something that you rarely find in other sparkling wines and is a major factor in making champagne The King of Wines (of sparkling wines at least).

More pictures from last week's trip to Champagne are coming up soon, meanwhile if you haven't entered our Win A Week In Champagne competition, hurry to go here now. The competition closes tomorrow

http://bit.ly/champers

Stay Bubbly

Jiles

Latest News About The Harvest In Champagne

 

It’s been announced that the first day of the 2009 harvest will be 10^th September for the few earliest areas and 15^th for the rest of Champagne

 

If you are planning to visit during this period to see what the harvest is all about, it’s best to book in advance because it’s the busiest time of the year – in fact many champagne houses are not even open for visitors at all.

Several champagne makers offer a special extended visit to the vineyards to see the harvest taking place, for example:

Champagne Nicolas Feuillate - Nr. Epernay ( the town/village where you can find them)

Champagner Achille Princier – Epernay

Champagne Simon Selosse – Avize

Champagne Lallement – Verzy

Champagne Vesselle - Bouzy

but not many actually allow you to cut the grapes yourself

If you would like to try your hand at actually cutting the grapes, here 3 makers who offer you the chance to do just that:

Champagne Launois Père & Fils – Le Mesnil-sur-Oger

Champagne Bernard Tissier – Chavot Courcourt

Champagne Grellet – Cuis

Don’t forget, take a waterproof and a good pair of boots

Bon courage

If you’re looking for somewhere very special to stay whilst you’re in Champagne, our home is available for rent. For pictures, information and prices go to

www.debateabubble.com/your-place-in-champagne.html

Please e-mail me with comments and questions at

jiles@madaboutbubbly.com

I'd love to hear from you

Try Your Hand at Grape-Picking in Champagne

The grapes in Champagne are almost ripe and the weather, at least was I was there last week, is still warm and sunny. If you've ever wanted to have a go a grape-picking, this year could be the chance you've been waiting for.

Harvest time is the highlight of the year in any wine-making region. It's a hive of activity: tractors and lorries are busy shuttling back and forth between the vineyards and the press houses, whilst in the vineyards, thousands of people are working to get the grapes in as fast as possible. All around is the heady scent of fermentation and alcohol in the making.

Most champagne houses, particularly the bigger ones such as Moët & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot and Laurent Perrier for example, are too busy to welcome any visitors who want to try their hand at the harvest, but an increasing number of the smaller champagne makers welcome small parties to take part in the famous ritual of the harvest.

The harvest is not due to start for a few more weeks yet, so if you want to have a go, there's still time to organise a visit, if you hurry. Do contact me on jiles@madaboutbubbly.com and I can put you in touch with a champagne maker that will be happy to see you.

There are various options, some of which don't involve the actual grape cutting, but all of them take you out into the vineyards to see what's going on, then back to the press house to taste the newly-pressed juice and to watch this important first stage of the champagne-making process. Then, to round things off, there's a traditional lunch.

Don't forget that the weather may not be good, so you need to take a waterproof and a good,sturdy pair of boots. Also don't forget that there's a lot of bending involved; although the vines are not tall, you still have to bend to cut the grapes.

For those of you in the U.K. it's really not far to Champagne - just 3 hours drive south of Calais - so this is something  you can easily fit in and it's an experience to try at least once in your lifetime. For those of you overseas, a little more planning will be needed, but it's still just as much fun.

For accommodation, don't forget that my beautiful home in champagne, is available for rent

Click here for details
http://www.debateabubble.com/your-place-in-champagne.html

Let me know how I can help you

Holiday in Champagne

Hello again,

I'm off for a few days in Champagne soon, so, if you've never been, I thought I'd share a few pictures of what it's like...

Many of you may well be preparing to get away on holiday and I'm happy to say "Me too!"

It's a bit of what we in England call ' A busman's holiday' ( i.e. just the same as usual ) because I'm off to spend a few days at our home in Champagne.

Still I'm really looking forward to it and apart from the obvious pleasures of discovering lots of new champagnes to taste, there's more to do in Champagne than you might imagine - that's when I can get away from the painting and DIY.

To show you what I mean here are a few photos and a few ideas of what  you may like to try next time you're in Champagne.

The picture in the top right corner is a view I remember from years ago when these tree-lined roads were all over France. There seem to be fewer of them these days,  but this one near the village of Damery  is one of the survivors and is so typically French that just looking at it it make me feels as if I'm already on holiday.

I'm told that the trees were planted along the roadside by Napoleon to shade his soldiers when they were on the march. These days many trees have been chopped down because they're a 'traffic hazard' - funny how it's never the trees that jump out at the cars, but always the cars that run off into the trees. Sounds like the cars are more of a 'tree-hazard'.

Still on the subject of road safety, please don't drink and drive if you visit the Distillerie de Guillon to sample the local whisky.

Yes, amazing though it sounds, one enterprising man set up a whisky distillery in Champagne.

It's near the village of Verzy and, luckily, is within walking distance of my house. The whisky is not yet of the quality that will get the the Scots, Irish or Americans  too worried about the competition, but why not give it a try when you just can't stand the thought of drinking more champagne.

If you've had too much rushing around and just want to relax and let the world go by, you can always try a boat trip down the River Marne. The river's wide and peaceful and very leisurely it is too.

Trips leave from the village of Damery and you can also book a meal onboard.

For the more energetic amongst you, there's a terrific adventure to be had swinging through the forest at Arboxygène- only 15 minutes from Reims and right in the middle of the Montage de Reims.

Take a look at their web site at

http://www.arboxygene.eu/

Last but certainly not least, of course, you're almost certain to be surrounded by the vineyards, so why not take a stroll along the many paths and tracks that meander through the rows of vines. No one will mind where you wander as long as you don't damage the grapes or the vines.

If you have any questions or comments, please leave your name and e-mail address and I'll get back to you. Altenatively, you can e-mail me at  jiles@madaboutbubbly.com and sign up for my free Bubbly Bulletins by going to www.madaboutbubbly.com

Mother Nature Steps In

Huge stroms have battered the Champagne vineyards, but as ever, there's a silver lining if you look hard enough.

If you read my blog yesterday you will have discovered that there's currently a big debate in Champagne about how big the harvest should be this year.

Sales of champagne are down, so logic says that there needs to be fewer grapes picked this year to avoid over-stocking. Those whose livelihood depends on growing and selling grapes however, aren't happy with that idea. So, how to resolve the debate?

Perhaps Mother Nature has the answer...

 Last weekend saw a huge storm pass over the region and in particuar over the villages of Aÿ, Mareuil-sur-Aÿ and Avenay-Val-d'Or. Torrents of rain and cascades of mud rushed down the vineyard slopes and the vines were battered mercilessly by hail. According  to some reports as much as 30% of the grapes in these villages were destroyed. That doesn't necessarily mean that 30% of the harvest will be lost, but some will be for certain.

If that were not enough, there's been a particularly bad outbreak of mildew in the vineyards this year and this too threatens to reduce the harvest even further. The great strides made over the last few years in reducing the use of harmful chemicals to treat the vines, seem to have left the vines more susceptible to disease.

Like it or not, it seems that this year's harvest will be relatively small and one wonders whether Mother Nature hasn't intervened to avoid mere mortals having to make the decision themselves.

Still, the champenois have seen this all before. Some of them are already saying that this year's harvest is a bit of a right off and, gritting their teeth, are setting their sights on better things in 2010.

As the great wine writer, Patrick Forbes once said, 

"It's not time, nor money, nor hard work, nor dedication that is needed most in Champagne, but courage"

I'd like to acknowledge the excellent blog Ad Vinum Eternam for the inspiration for this post and the photo

http://www.ad-vinum-eternam.com

It's written in French, so for all you French speakers/readers, it's worth a look

Jiles

The Best Place to Eat In Champagne?

Well, some would say it's Les Crayères  http://www.lescrayeres.com/ which is undoubtedly the swankiest restaurant in Champagne and worthy of a seperate blog some other day.

Some prefer Le Royal Champagne http://www.royalchampagne.com/which boasts what is certainly one of the best views in Champagne. Yet others swear that  La Briqueterie http://www.labriqueterie.fr/en/index.html  tops the lot.

To be fair we're splitting hairs trying to seperate them and of course there are hundreds of other restaurants large and small, expensive and cheap, and most of them with a unique atmosphere of their own. (All this talk about restaurants has got me thinking that a series of blogs about restaurants in Champagne would be a good idea. Let me know if you think so too).

But there is an alternative if you fancy something entirely different.....

Something you may not have thought of doing is to have dinner in the cellars (or caves as they're known in French), of one of the champagne houses. This isn't something you can just decide to do on the spur of the moment mind you - you need to book in advance -  and it's not for an intimate dîner à deux, but if you are travelling with, or organising, a group visit to Champagne then, for an experience that you can't get anywhere else, it takes some beating.

Not all champagne houses are geared up to offer catering in their cellars,  but many are and it's not just the big houses either. Take Champagne Vilmart at Rilly-la-Montagne http://www.champagnevilmart.com/  one of those 'great little' champagne houses that you really should try. Apart from their superb champagnes, Vilmart offers lunches and dinners in a warm, rather rustic setting ideally suited to their location in the heart of the vineyards.

If it's something a little grander that you're after, then go for one of the famous names. In Epernay the two most obvious venues are Moët & Chandon http://www.moet.com/site.php?lg=en for groups as small as 18 people, and Mercier

 http://www.champagnemercier.fr/anglais/home.htm

The picture shows Le Caveau Bacchus at Mercier which takes up to about 140 people, although they also take groups of 40, or even less.

In Reims, you can contact Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin ( to give the brand its full name), Mumm, Pommery and Ruinart, but hurry. The cellars at Ruinart are undergoing a major refurbishment next year and it's unlikely that they will be accepting any dinner bookings the entire year.

http://www.ruinart.com/#//index2.php

Ruinart is an excellent champagne with the added caché of being the oldest champagne house of them all, but their web site's not the easiest to navigate, I find.

I'm organising a conference and gala dinner in Reims for one of my clients and 150 of their guests this September. If you'd like to consider a similar event for your company or club, whether you're coming from the U.K. the U.S.A or Japan, just leave me a comment here or e-mail me at jiles@madaboutbubbly.com

You'l be surprised by the prices too. Probably far less than a similar event in a central city location and a lot more memorable too.