Set above chalk caves storing millions of bottles of aging effervescent Champagne, Reims is an attractive city well worth the one-and-three-quarter hour train ride from Paris.
The first sign of Champagne cultivation comes just outside the town of Epernay, where the landscape is criss-crossed with vineyards planted with orderly rows of grapes.
Champagne Cellar Tours
The best way to appreciate Champagne is through a tour of Reims’s cellars. More than a dozen of the famous Champagne houses in Reims offer tours, with rates averaging about €7 (US$11/£5). These are a bargain, as the price usually includes one or two glasses of Champagne, which cost about €6 (US$9/£4.60) each at local bars.
Guides lead tours deep into the chalk cellars underground. These Roman quarries were excavated to get stone for building. The subterranean labyrinths of cool caves were only later used for Champagne-making and storage. Down in the dimly-lit caverns below Reims stand row upon row of dusty Champagne bottles going through fermentation.
Visitors witness the complex process of producing a bottle of Champagne; from picking to fermenting to blending, the second fermentation, remuage (turning the bottles to collect the sediment) and dégorgement (removing the sediment).They impart the real sense of the pride the great Champagne makers of Reims take in producing their fine Champagnes.
Tours end in tasting rooms with a glass or two of the house's fine Champagne to sample. There, guides explain how Champagne is made and that Champagne is best sipped from tall tulip or flute glasses, which focus the tiny, perfect bubbles in continuous streams, rather than fishbowl glasses which dissipate the bubbles.
Taittinger’s Champagne tour starts with a short film in a screening room with large, murals explaining the Champagne-making process. An extensive, one-hour tour with knowledgeable guides follows. 9 Place St-Nicaise, Reims.
Pommery’s Champagne tour ends in a huge tasting room featuring an enormous carved barrel end and massive barrels of Champagne. 5 Place du Général Gourand, Reims.
Piper-Heidsieck’s (pronounced ‘peeper’) Champagne tour features an automated amusement-ride car running along tracks through the cellar with a taped commentary. 51 boulevard Henry Vasnier, Reims.
Champagne Vineyard Tours
As well as cellars, there are above-ground tours of the earlier part of the Champagne-making process – the growing and harvesting of grapes from Reims. Minibuses follow the official Route du Champagne through vineyards and past ancient villages outside Reims. They also go to the old abbey of Hautvillers where Dom Perignon lived. Part of the abbey is now a Champagne museum.
A typical Champagne tour for groups of two to eight people, in a minibus, is €20 (US$31/£15) per person. They depart from Epernay Tourist Office 09.30 and 14.30 according to the season. 11 rue du Bas, 51530 Mancy.
Getting to Reims
Trains for Reims depart from Paris several times a day from Gare de l'Est, so it is possible to leave in the morning, visit Reims and several caves or vineyards, and be back in Paris by late evening. Costs vary depending on the time of day and week.
When you arrive in Reims, your first sip may evoke Dom Perignon’s exclamation on tasting the first-ever Champagne: “It is like drinking the stars!”
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