Tasting vintage champagnes in Reims

Somewhere after the tour, in a park, with my brain trying to connect "sunny" with "chilly"

10 am – We arrived in Reims, France’s champagne region. It was sunny, the skies were blue but I felt the chills as soon as we hopped off our bus. When you’re from a tropical country, it is almost difficult to associate “sunny” with “cold”. Apparently, there’s such a thing. Reims was even colder than Paris but we didn’t need to reach the center to realize that people here were so much nicer.  Less complaints, no gasping nor weird, annoying sounds that Parisians make when they’re stuck in a long queue. A local girl even asked if we needed help with buying tram tickets!

We needed to eat lunch in the next 40 minutes or take the second half of the wine tour drunk. McDonald’s was the nearest option. I indulged. I’ve missed my nuggets. Then, after a few minutes of eating and blocks of walking, there it was -- the orange logo. We were headed to Maison Veuve Cliquot. We arrived right on time and hurriedly joined the group of 10 waiting at the lobby. The tour guide was a girl about my age. She had Mediterranean features with dark hair and was about an inch taller than me. Nice and friendly in a refreshing kind of way. When she talked in English, her zzzzs were being thrown like a sweet lullaby to my ear. I thought to myself -- I want this girl’s job! How easy would it be to fake a French accent when I speak English? It would've been nice but....

A long staircase led us down to the cellar. It was dark but the orange letters “VCP” right at its foot looked like orange fire temptation; a force of gravity pulling you down slowly to an infinity in hell.

It felt like heaven to me.

The stairs leading you down to the cellar

We talked about the history of the brand, Madame Cliquot and her emancipation, champagne, bottles of champagnes, disgorgement of champagnes, old champagnes, new champagnes then finally; the last and best part – tasting the champagnes! 

Champagne glasses were beautifully arranged on top of the bar. Our tour guide first opened a non-vintage -- champagne made with grapes harvested from different years. It was good. But nothing too special. Then, came the vintage – La Grande Dame. We were told to wait and aerate the wine before drinking. We did. Et voila – it was a bursting flavor of “age” and “celebration” with notes of apple, orange and apricot blended beautifully by a highly-respectable minerality. Or maybe I was drunk… but it was good. 

The sight of a vintage - pale gold; and a sniff of good age

La Grande Dame -- the guide say that this vintage was a blend of pinot noir and chardonnay

Tasting room

Bienvenue au Reims

Earlier that day, when my alarm started beeping at 5 am, the first thing that came to mind was the glass of pale-gold vintage that I would be having in a few hours.  More than 12 hours later, I leave Reims drunk and poorer but also amazed at how history and religion interrelates with wine.

À la tienne !