Our Champagne Tour in Reims
For our final countryside destination on our festive Christmas trip, we stopped in champagne country in Reims! Full of vineyards and fancy French cooking, we could greatly enjoyed our time in Reims!
Logistics
I would hurry to read our overall travel planning post here to get some tips on our (mostly) French Christmas Trip! For Reims, we truly hit a gold mine! After a lengthy debate between staying in the city center or on the outskirts with our car, we found a gem on AirBnB in the small village of Sillery. Coincidentally, we stumbled on it because we loved their private champagne tour!
Reims Activities
While there are day trip options to visit Reims from Paris, I really enjoyed our quiet time in Reims. Plus, we had the great opportunities to do a few more things!
- Private Champagne Tour: Finding a champagne tour similar to our wine tours in other countries is really difficult. Then, one night, I found this AirBnB experience with not many ratings but it offered a private tour of the popular champagne houses!
- Private French dinner - A Champagne Gastronomic Experience: Once we booked our AirBnB, I read in the reviews that if you booked well in advance, you get a champagne-themed home cooked meal.
- Champagne Houses/Bars: Throughout Reims, you can easily walk into many, many champagne houses and wine bars. The major champagne houses such as Bollinger, Taittinger, and Veuvue Cliquot all offer hourly visits.
- Reims Cathedral: I highly recommend simply walking around the old town and seeing the Reims cathedral. We had a great little tour as part of the Champagne Tour and it really brought to history!
Food and Drink
Throughout the city, there are terrific restaurants and little cafes! Because we had an all day tour that included delicious food experiences, we did not have enough time to try them!
Here are all the restaurants, bars, and cafes we found, tried, and wanted to try throughout our Christmas Tour!
A Night to Remember
Shortly after arriving in the small village of Sillery, we were warmly welcomed and escorted to our comfortable room. Because of our experience, we quickly refreshed ourselves from our Verdun day trip and went downstairs for our Champagne gastronomic experience!
As we were in Champagne country, our aperitif would be horribly incorrect if we did not have fine champagne! Our hosts, Stephane and Prycille, kindly shared their life story with us as we settled into our dinner experience.
Originally, they started just doing AirBnB hosting as another income source. They slowly expanded into the dinner experience and the champagne tour because they felt their guests were missing out on the best of Reims!
Best Meal Ever?
For our champagne gastronomic experience, it was absolutely amazing. I know we have had fine meals in France, but this meal is unique in several ways! Firstly, it had champagne as a theme in every course. Our menu was fantastic!
Our starter was a traditional ham soaked in champagne. It was very simple, yet tasty! For the second course, she prepared us a champagne traditional ice slushy. In the middle of the meal, it was a perfect palate cleanser. Finally, for the main course, she made a chicken in a mustard and champagne sauce. Wow, I normally don’t like chicken leg but it was so good and fell off the bone!
In between chicken and dessert, we had local cheeses! While we don’t normally enjoy that many soft cheeses, we tried every single one to get the full experience. For the grand finale, we had raspberry flavored ice cream with traditional Reims biscuits that had been soaked in champagne. Wow, for a guy who doesn’t like chocolate, this meal was fabulous!
Throughout the meal, we kept asking them questions on how they learned how to cook! Prycille said she just experimented in the kitchen with whatever was fresh. After that meal, we were fat and happy - and in a food coma!
Our Day in Champagne
Beginning in our cozy AirBnB, our day in champagne included a historical city center visit, two private champagne houses tours, and two terrific meals!
Breakfast of Champions
After our amazing champagne dinner, we hardly wanted to eat but we knew we had to persevere to enjoy the breakfast of champions! To begin our day, Stephane went to the local bakery and picked up fresh, warm bread! Apparently the bakery won several awards for best bakery in France too! The rest of breakfast included fresh apple sauce and jams! Another great French breakfast!
Historical Reims
In the historical city center, the main attraction is the beautiful Reims Cathedral Tour.
Smiling Angels
Home of the most statues in Europe, the cathedral has seen a lot of history. During WW1, because of Reim’s proximity to the frontline, they were bombed constantly and the statues lost a lot of heads. One of the most famous statues is the Smiling Angel. Contructed in the 1200s, the statue has a neat smile. Destroyed in 1914, the statue then became a big French propaganda tool as it demonstrated German barbarity destroying French culture. According to Stephane, many Americans paid a lot of money to have it reconstructed!
Home of Kings - and Queens
Here in Reims is the home of the first French king, Clovis. Back in the medieval times, he won an important battle nearby and started the French dynasty. After his victory, he obtained special and holy oil and was anointed King of France in Reims. Since that moment, Reims had been used for coronation ceremonies.
Furthermore, Reims played an important part in the heroic Joan of Arc story. After her swift victories in the 1400s, Joan of Arc helped Charles VII retake land from the English. Her dominance in battle led to Charless VII coronation in Reims and ultimate victory over the English. Nowadays, Reims holds a huge festival!
Story Time
Once inside the cathedral, Stephane showed and told us some of the amazing stories that lie either on the stain glass or various statues. My personal favorite (also very fitting!) was the stain glass featuring wine. Considering that it dates back to the medieval period, that is quite impressive!
Couvreur-Prak
For our first champagne tour, we went to a small independent house at Couvreur-Prak. Family owned and operated for a few generations, the house has won quality awards in the past few years. Because they are a small winery, we had a private tour led by the owner, Sombath!
Champagne Committee
Because we had never been on a champagne tour, Sombath began at the very beginning for them. Since champagne has a certain prestige around the world, the regulations are very strict and unlike anything we had heard of in our other wine tours. In addition to the usual quality controls and house designations, the champagne committee controls every aspect of your production.
They control the amount of grapes picked per hectare, weight of grapes picked is also checked. Once the house pours the their hard work into the harvest, they then control the amount of juice you are allowed to keep. Sombath said it is a painful experience to let the juice flow onto the ground.
Once they get into production, the committee also controls the amount you’re allowed to bottle. Then, if that wasn’t bad, they also control the number of bottles you’re allowed to sell! We did ask multiple times if they ever broke the rules, but there would be harsh retributions. As Sombath said, this is the most tightly controlled wine region in the world to keep price and demand very high!
The Process
In the champagne process, it does not differ from normal wine until the very end! There are a few grape varieties that they grow here - Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier that are the primary grapes in champagne. In order to get the bubbles, they add more yeast and sugar after the second fermentation.
In order to get rid of the sentiment that forms with the yeast, the bottle is tilted towards the next and is rotated at a 1/4 turn for a month. The final step is to freeze the sediment and take it out. This process varies based on the producer as some are very old school while some use technology to freeze the sediment in the neck and remove it in order to keep as much wine as possible.
Champagne Tasting
For our tasting, we had the opportunity to have four unique champagnes. To begin the flavor profile, we started off with “normal” champagne to show us the true difference between the $5 “champagne” at the grocery store to finely crafted champagne! Unsurprisingly, it was very good! Next, we tasted the unique blanc with noir. It is a special blend crafted by Sombath because it is champagne with black grapes. While I enjoyed the blend, MF preferred normal champagne.
For our final two tasting, we tried their vintage brands. Unlike other wines, vintage champagne means it only includes the grapes from that year’s harvest. Thus, each year's vintage will be different! We tasted their 2013 and 2009 and both were very different! The 2013 was very young and acidic whereas the 2009 was extremely smooth - similar to a fine wine!
In the end, we purchased one bottle of 2013 and 2009, and a special half bottle of the Blanc with Noir for me!
Another French Gastronomic Experience
Included in the champagne tour was another delicious lunch! I swear we did stop to breath during our time in Reims as we definitely felt like we were ONLY eating and drinking! Similar to last night, Pryclle made us another 5 course meal!
To begin, we had salmon and asparagus mousse - something that I never would have thought to mix or eat but we really enjoyed it! To refresh the palate, we then had a Ratafia with plum ice cream. Ratafia is a type of champagne liqueur similar to limoncello so it is very sweet.
For our main course, we had a duck roast with mash potato. While we only eat duck in France, it was still one of the best roasts we have had! The duck was so tender and fell apart in our mouths. For the grand finale, we had the famous Reims pink biscuits with a champagne creme egg that Pryclle made herself! The dessert was entirely homemade and very tasty with the rose champagne!
Tattinger
After our terrific lunch, we were led to the jaw dropping champagne estate of Tattinger. Dating back to the abbey’s time in the early 1200-1300s, the estate has incredibly massive cellars and Tattinger isn’t even considered a big house! Although the cellars are medieval, the house did not create champagne until the 1700s, then became a massive hits until today where they produce 2 million bottles a year. Compared to their competition, other houses will make 10, 25, or up to 90-100 million bottles. Where can they store all that?!
As we toured the champagne house, it felt very corporate compared to our morning visit to a boutique house. Everything was too perfect - from the “homemade” video to the clean floors. For the tasting, we only got to have one tasting and it was not that good. The champagne tasted very acidic and not as smooth as the small house. According to Stephane, the weird taste is due to more sulphates.
Sadly, after the Tattinger tour, all good things must come to an end. Stephane was fantastic and dropped us off at our next AirBnB inside Reims city center. After such a great two days with him, it felt strange to go back to our solo travel!
The UnChartered Summary
Our Champagne and Food Tour of Reims was quite unlike any other experience! From the champagne gastronomic dinner to the tasty champagne lunch, we had some of our best French meals. Thanks to our hosts, we were spoiled especially when we remembered that we had champagne for every meal!
- Similar to the most expensive nature of champagne, be prepared to spend money on any champagne tour - whether on your own or with Stephane.
- However, that being said, I would HIGHLY recommend his AirBnB tours and home! We felt like one of the family and cannot wait to visit in the spring or summer when the vines are in full bloom!
- Thanks to this tour, MF and I realized we prefer the boutique or smaller champagne house. Not only do we get more of a personal and rewarding experience, but typically the champagne is better! Save the larger houses for a wine bar.
- I do wish we went to about 3 champagne houses that day, but I think the trade-off is the great lunch so I would take that!
- If one is coming from Paris, I would easily make Reims an overnight stay and visit Stephane! It is remarkably easy!