An Autumn Tour of Champagne

The late September day dawned cool and overcast. However, that did not dampen the excitement my friend and I were feeling for our upcoming adventure: an autumn tour of Champagne. We met our guide at a nearby Parisian hotel and settled in for a pleasant ride to northeastern France. In less than two hours, we arrived in Reims, the heart of the Champagne region. Here, we took a few minutes to visit the Gothic Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Reims. With it’s twin, square towers and stunning, rose windows, I couldn’t help but notice the similarities to Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris. I also found the expressions on some of the façade sculptures quite amusing, as if they were sharing an inside joke.

The Cellars of G.H. Mumm

Our next stop was the cellars of the prestigious Maison Mumm. Here our guide lead us down tens of metres into the earth, to their labyrinth of caveaux, managed by a vintage control panel. The first of these caves, presented us with the champagne vats. Any romantic illusion I had of seeing giant, wooden barrels of fermenting grape juice was quickly shattered as industrial-looking, concrete vats lined the walls. And to help ensure we found our way out, a Mumm signature-red line marked the path on the tunnel floor.

For the time being though, our mission was to proceed further into les caveaux. And as we did, a subterranean city revealed itself to us.  A seemingly endless series of tunnels spawned child upon child. One might be tempted to think that this was a ball of confusion. It is not. For these beautiful, arched caves are segmented into sections, each one labelled with the name of a local champagne-making region or cru. And, instead of being lined with stacks of bones and skulls as I had discovered at les Catacombes de Paris a few days earlier, these were lined with ‘riddling’ racks of aged bottles of bubbly. The longest and straightest of these tunnels, we learned, in years past hosted a mini ‘Tour de France‘ bicycle race for employees. And so it is lovingly named le Champs Élysées, after the famous boulevard in Paris where the actual Tour ends.

The Riddling

And what, you may ask, is riddling? This key step in the champagne-making process facilitates the removal of sediment from the bottle once aging is complete. After being stored in a horizontal position sur lattes, bottles are gradually tilted sur pointe – neck down – and rotated in small increments. Gravity forces any sediment into the neck of the bottle as the angle of the tilt increases. Done manually, remuage can take up to six weeks and about 25 turns per bottle. Success results in a crystal-clear champagne. And the inventor of the pupitre or table de remuage – riddling rack – none other than Madame Cliquot of the famous Maison Veuve Clicquot.

The History in the Making

The last of the caves that we visited gave us a glimpse into the history of this prestigious champagne house. Here were cuvées dating as far back as the 19th-century. And examples of earlier technological advances in the champagne-making process, such as an inventive, vertical bottle conveyor designed to transport bottles among floors. And at last, the large, wooden wine barrels I had been expecting to see. A splash of the signature red of la Maison Mumm trimmed each of these.

A Taste of Champagne

Returning to the surface, we ended our visit to H.G. Mumm with a tasting of several of the fruits of their vines. Unfortunately, the cool weather didn’t permit us to enjoy lounging on their lovely terrace. It did however, give us more of an opportunity to admire some of their champagne accessories. This included a steel sabre designed by famed British industrial designer, Ross Lovegrove. I’m certain that any champagne connoisseur would be proud to uncork their bottles with a single swipe of this sleek tool.

The Creator

From Maison Mumm our autumn tour of Champagne continued southward, to the village of Hautvillers, to pay hommage to the man mistakenly credited for inventing champagne. Here, at the foot of the altar of l’Église Saint-Sindulphe de l’Abbaye Saint-Pierre d’Hautvillers, lay the final resting place of Benedictine monk, Dom Pérignon.  While he did not create champagne, this renowned vintner was responsible for a number of important innovations in champagne making. And he is in good company here. For this little église is also home to the relics of the Abbey founder, Saint Nivard, Archbishop of Reims as well as those of Saint Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine, who discovered the relics of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem in 326.

Le Cru Cumières

After a tasty lunch, we made our way to the cru of Cumières, to the root of the matter – the vines. It was here that the beauty of the surrounding landscape revealed itself to us. And while the vineyards were situated on stony, southern slopes, these were nowhere near as steep as le Mont des Damnés that I had visited the year before on A Sancerre Vineyard Tour in the Loire Valley. We learned that the champagne harvest occurs between mid-September and the beginning of October, employing some 90,000 people over 404 vineyard plots. As our autumn tour of Champagne was occurring during the last week of September, I had thought we might get to witness the harvest. Sadly, we were about a week late. And the scant grapes that remained on the vines were now food for the birds, or anyone else passing by.

Going Organic

From the vineyards, we made our way into the village of Cumières, to visit a Champagne maker operating at an entirely different level than Maison Mumm. Champagne Laval-Louïs is a small, family-owned and operated vintner that cultivates approximately 4 hectares of nearby vineyards. And where Mumm produces about 7.5 million bottles a year, Laval-Louïs makes between 15 and 20 thousand. This multi-generational operation focuses on producing a quality product in an environmentally-friendly manner.

And before we tasted the fruits of their labour, one of their sons demonstrated a key step in the champagne-making process: le dégorgement. Executed after the riddling, disgorging removes a frozen plug of ice containing the spent yeast from the champagne bottle. The vintner then ‘doses’ the bottle by adding a few ounces of wine to make up for the volume lost by disgorging. It is after this that the bottle is finally corked.

And with that, it was time to head back to Paris. Our guide kindly fulfilled our request to drop us off at la Madelaine. From there we walked around the corner and ended our wonderful, autumn tour of Champagne with a sweet treat at the elegant Café Pouchkine.