We Felt Bubbly About Our Final Stop In Reims

After lunch, we walked about a mile to the champagne house of Veuve Clicquot.  Reims is the capital of the champagne region of France, which means, since their wine is from the Champagne region, they can call their sparkling wine Champagne.

Going and doing champagne tours in the Reims area (day trip from Paris) is quite popular.  Typically you go to some combination of vineyards, cellars, and champagne houses.  We didn't feel the need to do that, so we did just an hour long tour of the caves at Veuve Clicquot, with a tasting at the end.

It was about a mile walk from lunch (at a restaurant just below the Abbey) to Veuve Cliquot.  It was the part of town where the roads had not been torn up!  

For the tour, we were in a group of 12-14 or so.  Our guide took us into the caves to some different rooms carved by Romans out of chalk back in the day.  It was an interesting tour.  I asked at the end what they thought of the recent French movie, "Widow Clicquot," which came out in 2023 (French language only).  

Well, I got a quite frosty response.  Not having seen the movie, but thinking about watching it, I was taken aback.  Apparently the movie was not made with cooperation of the company, as it did a Hollywood-esque number on Widow Clicquot.  Given how upset the guide was by the question, I didn't have any more questions.

One funny moment during the tasting was a champagne bottle top popped in the next room -- just fired off on its own.  Apparently it doesn't happen often, but it does happen.

The stairs down into the caves.

The rack for turning and aging

was one of the Widow's several

innovations in the wine &

champagne business.

The caves are the perfect temperatures

for storing barrels and bottles.

The stairs up are famous in

champagne circles.  The

years in the stairs represent

top quality vintages.

After the tour and tasting, a staffer called a cab for us, and we headed back to the train station.  Except. . .wrong train station!  I had booked us a train back to Paris from the Reims station rather than the Ardennes-Champagne station.  Ugh, we didn't realize it until I couldn't find our train from Ardennes-Champagne on the board -- because we held tickets for Reims to Paris.  Fortunately, we were able to switch trains with a minimal added cost.  That's what I get for overthinking our journey.