Champagne

I do not drink wine regularly and champagne even less so; I’m fairly sure I could count the occasions on my fingers. Therefore, I was not particularly looking forward to this site and tacked on a tour of the Taittinger wine cellars to a daytrip to Reims from Paris. The tour begins from the Champagne House 2.5 km southeast from the main station of Reims. If walking, the route has a very gentle incline up Saint-Nicaise Hill and goes right past the Cathédrale Notre-Dame and the Palais du Tau. It is easy to divert to Basilique Saint-Remi to complete the set for the Reims site on the way there or the way back. Unlike some of the other manufacturers, which resemble grand mock castles, the Taittinger buildings above ground were unremarkable. I was a little afraid I would be the only one on the tour and my lack of knowledge about wine would lead to an awkward experience but I was, for once, grateful to see a reasonably large group gather in the reception/waiting room before the tour began. Decorative champagne bottles adorned the walls with a model of the old abbey that once stood upon this hill in the centre of the room. The cheapest ticket (as of late 2022) was 27€ including a single glass of champagne at the end. More expensive packages were available with additional glasses for the connoisseur. There was an option for a tour without tasting for 13€ but the website said this was …

August 2018 - it was my birthday and we entered Epernay at around 10 am. Champagne, thats not just sparkling wine, there is style, inventor spirit and history behind it. We could not just drive through the wineyards and tick the site of. On the Avenue de Champagne we passed numerous luxus brands and couldnt realy decide.

We visited Castellane and Mercier. The promised train ride underground throught the champagne cellars, was just too promising for a birthday present. Since my wife was pregnant, I had to taste the champagnes on my own. Mercier exhibits the bighest Champagne cask, made for the Expo in Paris, Castellane has the most impressive headquarter. The underground cellars are impressive and massive. Just Mercier has kilometeres of shafts filled with bottles. We learned about the Methode Champigneuse and the constutuition of grapes typical for that drink.At the end of the tour we hade some differnet sorts of Champagne. You can visist almost all of the Champagne porducers.

After our stay in Epernay, we drove to Hautvillers and visited another small Champgane producer. From here you have beautiful view on the vineyards. Finally we reached Reims. A fabulous town, but we concentrated on visiting the Cathedral and some modern architecture. But the whole town is filled with champagne merchandise.

Definitely the big drinks should have their own whs sites. Still hoping for breweries and destilieris on the list. An of course hops growing regions.

Twenty or so years back my aunt and I had visited Reims. We had been to the cathedral and visited the city center. But we skipped on the hills where the Champagne houses are; it's not in walking distance from downtown and at the time it wasn't a tourist attraction.

This time we skipped past the city center and went directly up the hill. It's really impressive when you pull in. The Champagne houses are large estates, half factory, half palace.

It's interesting how the marketing influenced the architecture and the presentation. When you visit the Pommery cellars for instance, you will see plenty of art on exhibition. While this may seem like a fancy tick, this is part of the original marketing conceived by Ms Pommery back in the 19th century.

In Reims we managed to see the Pommery Cellar and the St Nicaise hill. We passed by Taittinger and Martel but both houses were closed on Sundays. In Epernay we visited Fort Chabrol and the stellar Avenue de Champagne.

If I had to pick between Reims and Epernay I would probably opt for Epernay as you are closer to the vineyards. In Reims I was really wondering if there is wine at all in the Champagne. Overall, this is a pretty great site for a wine site. The 19th century architecture really sets it apart from other vineyards.

Getting There

There are TGV trains to Champagne Ardeche on the outskirts of Reims …

Visited Pommery champagne house in August 2018. It should be pre-booked in advance through the official web site. The guide told fascinating story of the house, Madam Pommery and champagne making process. One of the cellar rooms contains the most prominent bottles, including a bottle of the first original brut created in 1874 (only one of two perfect vintage years, when no additional sugar is needed). There is also artwork inside the cellars – large sculptures completed in 1884 by Gustave Navlet. Currently the cellars a part of large Vranken Pommery Monopole Group with sales of 300 million euro and 800 employees. Champagne testing followed the tour and it is amazing. In overall, good experience and interesting truly unique region.

In the morning before the flight from Paris back to Berlin I decided to visit the Taittinger Cellar of the Champagne WHS so that I can finish off this part of France.

After some scuffle with the French police at the Gare de Paris-Est (while I was using a toilet on TGV, 2 men stole my wheeled bag from the luggage rack only to be arrested once they got off the train with my bag, all before the departure), I arrived at the Cellar in Reims in time for my English tour.

The tour was fine, and the glass of Champagne to cap the tour was even finer. I believe the color of their product, shown in the photo, seconds the OUV of this WHS.

But I regretted that this trip to Reims was so hastily organized that I didn't manage my time in Reims well and couldn't even view the phantasmagorical Pommery Champagne house. I did manage, however, to squeeze in a visit to the St. Remi Abbey, another WHS, near the Taittinger Cellar.

The Champagne WHS consists of three elements: the vineyards around Hautvillers and Ay, the architecture of the Champagne houses in Epernay and on the Saint-Nicaise Hill in Reims, and the network of chalk cellars in the subsoil of these sites.

We started exploring this WHS in Epernay. We left our car in a large parking lot in the town centre near the western end of the Avenue de Champagne. The Avenue de Champagne is about 1.5 kilometres long, the Champagne Houses are lined up next to each other on both sides of the street. Well, "Houses" is clearly an understatement, the terms chateaux or mansions are more applicable. Most of them were built in the 19th century. The Moet & Chandon company has the largest building and it is also the best known brand, most of the other names I had never heard before. Several of the Champagne Houses offer guided tours to the cellars, Le Castellane (easy to find because of the striking water tower) can be visited without pre-booking.

Next, we headed to the villages and vineyards north of Epernay. Hautvillers is the most picturesque village and is regarded as the birthplace of Champagner. The Benedictine monk Dom Perignon was in the 17th century the cellarer of the Abbey of St Peter. He significantly contributed to the development of the Méthode champenoise, the second fermentation in bottles, and the blending of different grape varieties. And a legend says that he also introduced the bottle size of 0.7 liters, …

The inscription of Champagne did remind me the first time when I visited the city of Reims in 2006. The main reason to visit was to see the famous Cathedral. When I reached the youth hostel, I saw a brochure of champagne cellar tour and really captured my interest. I immediately decided to walk to the champagne house area; on the way I stopped to see the World Heritage Site of former abbey of Saint Remi. After some direction confusing and old record shops browsing, I finally arrived at the front gate of the champagne house of Pommery. In 2006 the name of the house was still just Pommery and opened to public tour with no need of reservation. My first impression on the place was “is this really a champagne house!” since I saw a complex of many types of architecture from medieval castle-liked building, Gothic building with fake turrets and conical roof towers next to very neo classical building. Not only that there was a modern contemporary statue guarding the door. I was not sure that I could consider the place to be bizarre or tasteless or inspiring.

Anyway, I entered into this champagne house and found the sign of ticket booth. There were three types of ticket to choose, cellar tour with one tasting, cellar tour with Grand Cuvee tasting, and just cellar tour. I could not remember the price, but I remembered I chose the cellar tour with one tasting, the Grand Cuvee was …

Champagne Hillsides, Houses and Cellars is another candidate for inclusion this year. And it's another serial nomination: it comprises 14 locations in the Champagne-Ardenne region in the North East of France. On my way to the WHS of Vézélay and the Abbey of Fontenay, I spent Ascension Thursday in Reims to check out a couple of these Champagne sites.

I rarely drink alcohol, so all these wine-related (T)WHS are a particular chore for me to tick off. Fortunately, this nomination focuses more on the industrial and commercial process of champagne production than on endless hillside vineyards. With this cleverly chosen angle of argumentation, I believe the Champagne sites also distinguish themselves enough to warrant WH status. The sites are presented as a continuing evolved cultural landscape too, which for sure must please some of the jurors. And to top it off, these sites (or at least their products) are globally known: "The outstanding nature of Champagne also lies in its symbolic aspect, shared across the world".

Among the special features of this WHS are the Cellars: underground chalk chambers that hold the bottles of champagne until the contents are ready to be consumed. You can visit the cellars on a tour of one of the Champagne Houses. They all seem to do tours, as a form of publicity or a way to earn something extra. I choose to visit Taittinger in the champagne quarter of Reims. This is the only one of the major houses that offers tours …

I visited this TWHS in June 2013 unknowingly but in November 2014 I made up for it by staying at a small champagne-maker. I visited a number of chalk cellars (Veuve Cliquot, Marcier, Taittinger, etc.) with guided tours varying from 30 mins to 2hrs. My favourite cellar was Pommery's together with the Art Nouveau Villa Demouseille. I explored the famous Avenue de Champagne in Epernay and enjoyed visiting the Comtesse Lafond Castle. Finally I visited several small towns nestled in the Champagne vineyard hills such as Dizi and Hautvillers. In Hautvillers I visited the tomb of Dom Perignon and then walked through the vineyards of Moet & Chandon to a panoramic viewpoint. Hautvillers is a very quaint village, famous for its wrought iron signs. Most probably this site will be inscribed in 2015.