15th January 2008

Today we have arranged to tour a couple of the well known champagne houses.  Our first stop is to be Taittinger, but as we arrive too early, we head to the Basillica of St Nicaise . 

Once more we are overawed by the majesty of this wonderful church.  Built originally in the 13^th century but destroyed during the first world war the reconstruction is amazing.  The corpse of a famouus saint (the name escapes me :( ) is entombed within an ornate sarcophagus in the central nave of the church. 

    

Taittinger is quite an experience. One and a half kilometres of caves, housing 19 million bottles of champagne.  We are led down several metres below ground into the chalky caverns that were originally quarries dug by the Romans and then, the pyramidal shaped caverns were joined by walkways by the original champagne makers of the area when they realised that these tombs, with their constant temperatures and humidity, were the perfect storage place for their precious liquid.  After an extensive tour we are led to the surface and our tour finishes with the tastings of their famous champagne. 

We have a tour booked with Veuve Cliquot for 2.30pm so now have at least two hours to fill in. The weather today is the worst we’ve experienced with the rain constantly beating down and the wind blowing a gale.  We still have about an hour and a half to wait so we wander back to a bar we passed and call in for a couple of wines with the locals ......and their dog!

Back at Veuve Cliquot ready for our tour - which we pre-booked.  Unfortunately the caves are undergoing renovations so we are only able to have a brief visit, however the rest of the tour is most enlightening giving us the background information on the founding of Veuve and, of course, Madame Cliquot, who steered the company toward the major supplier of champagne that it is even today, although now owned by a multinational, who also owns Louis Vuitton. 

Together with our newfound friend from Sydney, Cynthia, Gordy and I are off to Mumm.  We enter the house of Mumm, a vast expanse of pale tiles highlighted with the signatory red of the Mumm ribbon throughout with carpets and drapes and a sweeping staircase leading out of sight from us mere mortals. 

Michael is our guide on the Mumm tour, a young Italian/French man who is clearly dedicated to his position.  He engages us in conversation as he leads the three of us, walking backwards the entire time, through the caves of Mumm.  This is a slightly different tour to the others as Mumm doesn’t have the chalk caves but rather bricked alcoves and ordered rows, their longest being four kilometres which they proudly call the “Champs Elysees”.  The tour is very informative and, as we have all chosen the “three” taste tour, we end in the lounge area tasting three different, full sized glasses of champagne.  As Cynthia has missed her scheduled train home we opt to have dinner near the ‘gare’ at a restaurant that specializes in mussels served in about twelve different ways, but I am the only one of the three of us to indulge. 

For some useless information – a Nabuchodonosor is15 litres or 20 bottles, a Balthazar 12 litres or 16 bottles, a Salmanaza  9 litres or 12 bottles and a Mathusalem is 6 litres or 8 bottles.