Monday 27 August 2012

Champagne - the place and the drink

The whole area of Champagne is very beautiful - a quilt of rolling hills covered with vineyards, interspersed with pretty towns decorated with flowers, and offering a lovely church or two, and at least one very prestigious-looking champagne house that visitors can tour.

At the centre is Reims, city that boasts an 800 year-old cathedral, that was witness to the crowning of 25 kings of France. You can't go far in this city without coming across several very sophisticated champagne houses that often look more like castles, protected by tall cast-iron fences, and serving as the entrances to the many kilometers of underground passageways and caves that house thousands of bottles of champagne in storage.

One could easily make a movie in these dark, cold mazes. Definitely horror movies, but maybe adventure, mystery, or historical fiction films, also. The damp, freezing walls, the endless rows of dusty bottles, and, most of all, the tendrils of clinging clumps of dust that hang from gates and all types of ironwork hanging from the ceiling, would mean that nothing would have to be done as set decoration - it's already all there!

At the end of each quite expensive tour, you get to enjoy your flute of champagne, and if you thought ahead, and you and your partner each ordered a different type, you can share and compare them. 

We learned that champagne is made from three different grapes - pinor noir, chardonnay, and some pinot meunier. Unlike wine, once it is in its finished state in the bottle, it will not change at all in flavour or quality, so whether you drink it after one day or a few years, it will taste the same.    

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