France Imagined: A Champagne Country Travel Guide
Ramp up your planning for your trip to champagne country before you ever leave home. It’s the most ingenious way to identify the stopping points of your itinerary when you do get on a plane headed across the pond.
If France is on your to-do list, think champagne.
In order to be legally called “Champagne” the bubbly must be made in France, specifically in the Champagne region in the northeast of France. Taittinger, Moët & Chandon, Dom Perignon and Veuve Clicquot are well-known and Veuve is my favorite.
Many of us claim our preference in champagne based on the event where we first toasted with it. For me it was a photo shoot for an in-flight magazine. It was 2004 and the shoot was in a luxe apartment with “cast members” (all friends) garbed in their finest. Veuve Clicquot was poured and poured and poured.
Veuve is one of the largest Champagne houses in France, founded in 1772. Madame Clicquot is famous for major vineyard gains, creating the first known vintage champagne in 1810. (Vintage means the grapes used are harvested in a single, exceptional year, and the resulting champagne is aged for a minimum of three years up to 20 years or more. Non-vintage Champagne is a blend of wines from multiple years and is best to enjoy within 3-5 years, slightly longer when properly stored. Madame Clicquot also invented the Champagne riddling table, a slanted wooden table with holes for bottles that is used to help loosen and move sediment from the sides of the bottle to the neck where it can be removed making it crystal clear.
You can order most of Veuve’s champagnes from your local liquor store. Vintage productions cost more than non, but the price of any Veuve is worth celebrating.
Check out vueveclicquot.com for tours when you do get abroad. Learn how Champagnes are made and dine at Clicquot Café.
Get to Reims from Paris via train operated by GV inOui. It only takes 46 minutes because it travels at speeds of 320 mph. A drink will make it ok! Recommended: Vueve Clicquot La Grand Dam 2018.