Champagne!

Did you know champagne grapes are not for making champagne? Trader Joes probably calls them that because the grapes are just really small. Champagne is made from Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and/or Pinot Meunier. Did you know that champagne requires 2 sessions of fermentation? Between the two they pop the cork and let some sediment explode out before injecting in some extra sugar and a couple ml of reserve champagne.

Well it was these tidbits and many other factoids that we learned on our latest trip to the Champagne region of France. The champagne region is a large watershed around the Marne river with the two major cities of Epernay and Reims (pronounced with no S and a whole heck of a lot of throat clearing). It was my first weekend back from Champaign Illinois, so what better time than to pick up our old American friends Jamie and Ryan who are spending their summer traveling through Europe with their friends Richard and Julie, and head to Trelou-sur-Marne - in the better Champagne.

We moved into a 3 bedroom AirBnB tucked away up a random street in this sleepy champagne town. There wasn't a single store in the immediate town, just a few small champagne operations and a community center that was filled with dancing people every night. Across the Marne river was a larger town where we did our grocery shopping. And out our front door was a road that led up into the vineyards, perfect for our friends' morning jogs, and for our put-Lilah-to-sleep walks.

Full-Day One we set out during lunch hour to taste champagne in our small area. Whoops! We already forgot that the extended lunch hour is the French siesta. So we kept driving to Epernay and booked a reservation at Moet et Chandon and sat down for lunch (Jamie's 3rd tomato salad of the trip [it's hard being gluten intolerant in France]). Back at Moet a charming tour guide in a formal black suit lead us down into a cave (cellar) with a 28km network of tunnels housing the entire collection of fermenting Moet et Chandon, including Dom Peringnon. It felt a little bit like entering a bank vault. As we walked down the tunnels we'd pass cul-de-sacs filled to the ceiling supports with stacked bottles covered in dust, and numbered and dated with a tiny chalk board. Our tour guide described the process in great detail, while the other English-speaking tourists among us hmmmed, ahhhhhed, and chomped at the bit for a chance to finally taste the champagne at the end. And that time came. And I got to say, it is pretty boring champagne. Good and clean, I could definitely drink a lot of it, but not much going on there.

After the tour we went to a bar in town and sat down for a full round of small pours. These champagnes were much more flavorful, I was getting hints of hazelnut throughout and everyone was looking at me like I was crazy.

Full-Day Two we set out to a small town midway between our house and Epernay to a family-owned small champagne house (Philippe Martin) recommended to us by one of the tour guides at Moet et Chandon. This champagnery (not a word) was interesting because a couple of their champagnes were aged in oak barrels just like in the old days (pre-1950). We ended up buying three bottles from this wonderful Maison De Champagne (what they are actually called), one of which was absolutely incredible (their most expensive obviously). It tasted like diamond butter on our tongues. We drank it that night and played Bang! into the wee hours.

It was Ryan's Birthday, so Kimmy made him a pie.

Beautiful unripe chardonnay grapes

Our AirBnB host gave us a tour of their family's cave and a champagne tasting

"Ze bubbles come from ze bottom of ze glass, where zere iz a small scratch."

The holy grail of Champagne

She is so cute.

We really enjoyed the coolness of the cave. It was a very hot day.

Posing in the bank vault of champagne. See each little nook extending both ways off the tunnel behind them? That is a lot of champagne.

Looking down one of the cave cul de sac nooks.

Contents under pressure! We were warned not to touch the bottles for they could explode.

The big tunnel running under Rue de Champagne.

Cheers! The tour ended with two full glasses per person.

Vineyards surrounding the Marne river (I swam in it)

Our group, taking a group shot by way of my new camera remote!

We drove up a random rode outside Philippe Martin to get this view of the valley.

Vines and cattle outside our BnB.

Bastille Day

The week before Bastille Day was the worst week I’ve had in France.  Chris was in the US for a conference and of course Lilah decided to get her first virus while he was gone… either Hand Foot Mouth or Roseola – the verdict is still out.  After temperatures of 102+ and blisters on her butt for 3 days, she broke out in a full body rash for another 3 days.  Meanwhile, it was pouring down rain every day so we were cooped up inside.  I wasn’t looking forward to single-parenting for the 9 days he was gone to begin with, but adding a sick baby to the situation was really hard.  I have so much respect for single parents, it is incredibly difficult to make decisions about your kid’s health on your own, know when to call the doctor and when you’re just being a worried mom, comfort a sick baby alone while you are exhausted, and still remember to eat, feed the kid, and not pull every strand of your hair out.

Anyway, that week sucked.  The only light at the end of the tunnel was knowing that Monday July 14^th was going to be awesome.  Chris got home from his conference, and our great friends Jamie and Ryan, and new great friends Richard and Julie arrived in Paris for a week.  And it was Bastille Day, so we had big plans to celebrate together.  And the sun decided to come out for the first time in a week.  Happiness!

Bastille Day was great.  We spent the afternoon walking from Jamie and Ryan’s airbnb to the Champ De Mars park at the Eiffel Tower, stopping for breakfast, some afternoon wine, and slowly picking up stuff for our dinner picnic.   I read that if you want a good spot to see the fireworks it’s best to get to the park early, so we arrived with all of our picnic stuff around 5:30pm.  It was crowded but easy for us to find a big spot for all 7 of us, and good we arrived when we did because our nice spot was slowly encroached upon and got smaller and smaller as the crowd grew.  We estimated there were around 250,000 people at the park by the time fireworks started.

The crowd thickens

Lilah and her pal Ryan

I love the Eiffel Tower, and I love fireworks, so the combination of the two was really magical.  And these fireworks were pretty awesome in general - well placed around the Eiffel Tower, and set mainly to classical music with one Beatles song in there for good measure.

The only downside of the day was getting home.  All of the trains to Versailles had stopped running, so after walking to 4 different metro stops to try different ways to get home, we waited for the ‘late bus’ for an hour which was full by the time it came to our stop, so we ended up sharing a taxi home with a grandpa and his granddaughter who were celebrating her 10^th birthday.  We got home around 2:30am which officially marks our latest night out in Paris.

Because...France?: The mailman

This is the local mailman. Actually, mail woman. Forget the mail trucks like in the US, mail around here is delivered by bike. It's pretty cute seeing all of the la poste workers riding their bikes around the city and it's definitely better for the environment, so score one for France. The downside is that when you get a package delivered by post, you have to go pick up your package at a random location in town. When we lived in Orsay, we picked up a package from the florist once, and another one from the fruit guy.