Champagne-France

Lac du Der-Chantecoq.

In our quest to meet up with the kids (@sailingpopeye), we raced headlong out of Germany with parched tongues for Champagne-France. This was a long day with Australia (aka caravan) in tow, a full-on six-hour trip. We reached our destination of Yellow Camping Champagne set beside Lac Du Der, 250 km east of Paris. Arriving late there wasn’t much time to set up so it was park, vino, eat, and sleep for an early start.

Picked them up (kisses-hugs-tears) at the train station the following morning and headed back to base for lunch. This was the start of a planned five-week much-anticipated camping and canal boat family reunion with some champagne-tasting-guzzling thrown in.

This campsite is one of 93 owned and operated by the French group Yelloh Village throughout France, the UK, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. We have stayed with them before in the Algarve’s Portugal. They are a very family-orientated campsite with great facilities for the kids.

Also, cyclists dream with a great 44km traffic-free ride around the lake. I’m guilty of only 15 km one way (30 return). I’m now telling myself I could easily have put in the extra 7km and then kept going. Interestingly this lake was man-made to service the local area with fresh water.

 Châlons-en-Champagne.

Châlons-en-Champagne, France was our second stop while touring the Champagne region in the province of Marne, with the kids. In this town, everything finishes with Champagne, even our campsite, “Camping de Chalons en Champagne”. There are many reasonably priced campsites operated by the local municipality. Not the flashiest facilities, but usually roomy pitches.

So what’s to do here? Well, it’s the home of (la maison de) Champagne. Perrier is one of the first families in this region famous throughout the world to produce Champagne.

Joseph Perrier (Champagne) was founded in 1825 and run by the family for six generations including its current manager Benjamin FOURMON. It is (apparently) the only remaining House making champagne in Chalons-en-Champagne, and its cellars are carved straight into the hillside. Each separate champagne cuvee created by Joseph PERRIER has a clear and distinct character. And after Fabian and Madelaine, our tasting party finished their tour, they had to agree.

Apart from champagne, there is the Cathedral (no surprise as almost every French town of any size has one). The Cathédrale Saint-Étienne de Châlons was built in the 12th century and was continually modernized right up until the 17 century. We were so impressed by this beautiful building (and it was so close to the kid’s mooring), that we decided to attend mass on the following Sunday after googling the mass times. All decked out in our traveling Sunday best we were disappointed when we arrived to find the cathedral locked up.

Outside the cathedral, there is a monument to the fallen soldiers of the First World War Battles of the Marne. There are many such monuments and dedications in this region of France and reminded us of the sacrifices of so many. The Battle of the Marne involved more than two million soldiers and resulted in about half a million casualties from both sides. Such a dreadful loss for so many and no one here forgets.

 Epernay-Champagne

Did you know… that the name Champagne is not French?

Apparently, the region was named by the Romans after the Italian region of Campania. And would you believe that the vine was introduced to the region by the Greeks, Burgundians, or maybe the Romans (it’s not exactly clear) between the 6th century BC and the 5th century AD?

But then on to 950 AD, there was a Count of Champagne, ruler of the County of Champagne. All very confusing. But they didn’t make Champagne until the first recorded production of champagne in the early 17th century. It subsequently became a drink of celebration and status in the court of King Louis XIV.

The town of Épernay is best known as the principal centre for champagne wines, which are bottled and kept in large cellars built into the chalk rock on which the town is built. The grape varieties used in champagne are Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay and the various Maisons de Champagne blend and mix them or not… so still confusing.

One aspect of production that is regulated, is how long the Champagne must age ‘on the lees’. It’s a minimum of 15 months (or even longer if it will be classified as vintage Champagne). However, many Champagne houses choose to age their non-vintage cuvees for more than two years. Vintage Champagne is often aged for four to five years or more because a fine Champagne can continue to develop for more than 20 years.

During the aging process, the bottle is stored on its side, and over time the sediment settles along the bottom side of the bottle. Riddling happens next. Riddling is the process of slowly rotating and tilting the bottle more and more each day until the neck pointed is pointed fully down. Why? Gravity is used to shift the lees down and concentrate them in the neck of the bottle, where, after aging is completed, it’s time to remove the sediment. How? Interestingly, the neck of the bottle is frozen (-27) forming a sediment plug that comes out of the bottle under pressure (no champagne is hurt in this process but sometimes a little bit escapes with the lees), and the bottle is resealed. The original purpose of the wrapping around the bottle’s neck was to conceal minor differences in the amount of liquid in the bottle (or so I’m told).

The most famous street in Épernay is the Avenue de Champagne which features the leading Champagne manufacturers. During our tour of the city with the kids we also visited Champagne De Castellane.

This house has a Saint-Andrews cross logo as a tribute to the flag (aka standard) of the oldest regiment in the Champagne region, and was established by Viscount Florens de Castellane, heir of one of the oldest families in France, who established his Champagne house in Epernay in 1895. There are literally miles of champagne bottles under Epernay in the Castellane tunnels, keeping cool for many of the houses in the area.

Today Champagne De Castellane is part of the Laurent-Perrier group.

 Hautvillers-Champayne

Did you know… that Hautvillers is famous for Champagne. Of course you did. But it’s even more famous for the monk who created it. Dom Perignon (1638-1715), the 18th-century pioneer of the Champagne-making process… sort of.

Dom Perignon did make important contributions to the production and quality of Champagne wine in an era when the region’s wines were predominantly still red. And popular myths abound, and there’s this adage about not letting the truth interrupt a good story . In any case, Champagne, with or without Dom didn’t become the dominant style of Champagne until the mid-19th century.