Forever growing bubbles

Forget your ordinary wine tours. For a taste of elegance, SARAH GRAHAM took in a few champagne houses.

The French have an amazing ability to take almost anything and make it seem elegant. The caves of the Champagne region are no exception - only in France would putting bottles of carbonated alcohol in dark underground caverns be stylish.

An hour north-east of Paris, the world-famous champagne houses are all in the small region of Champagne-Ardenne - the namesake of the dry bubbly wine we all know and drink too much of every New Year's Eve. Vineyards are a common sight throughout France, but what makes this particular area special is its "terroir" - a combination of the continental climate and the large concentration of chalk in the subsoil.

Initially created by monks for religious and royal ceremonies, the wine of this region was famous even before the added appeal of carbonation was discovered. In its early bubbly form, champagne was created using a sweet dessert wine - the dry champagne we know today was created much later.

For a sparkling wine to be labelled "champagne", the grapes must be grown in an approved vineyard within the Champagne region - all of which were legally defined in 1927. It must also be made from only approved types of grapes - chardonnay, pinot noir or pinot meunier.

The special grape juice is then passed on to a champagne house. Each house has specialised staff - led by the cellar master - responsible for creating its distinct taste and style.

Although champagne houses are all over the region, we decided to take a weekend and focus on the city of Reims, which has 11 houses within the city limits and three more just on the perimeter.

The city is well-equipped to deal with champagne tourism It has a large multilingual tourist office, loads of restaurants and a number of hotels and B&Bs to suit any price range.

The general itinerary of a champagne house tour involves you paying a small fee (€4-8 - about $8-15) to join a tour group. For that you get a quick information session, a tour of the caves, and finally a free sampling of the product. As in any tourist experience, there is always a boutique at the end where you can buy house merchandise.

During the hour-long tour you will learn what is involved in creating champagne from start to finish, as well as some of the tricks specific to the house you are visiting.

If you have your heart set on visiting a particular champagne house, you should call ahead and make a reservation. There are a limited number of tours each day, even fewer in English. Most houses have a website where you can find contact details.

We began our adventures at the Mumm Champagne House. Chosen by Queen Victoria, Mumm remains the champagne of the Royal Court of England and holds a "Royal Warrant" (and if it's good enough for them ... ).

I'm not sure if this tour was actually more informative than the others we had that day, or if we just paid more attention because it was our first. In any case, we emerged from the tour full of info and a healthy sampling of their various champagnes.

Our next stop was the Pommery Champagne House. We made a point of making a reservation at this place because of its history as the creator of "dry" champagne, as well as being one of the first businesses to thrive under the leadership of a woman. The fact that the house itself looks more like a castle than a place of business also didn't hurt.

The vibrant spirit of Madame Pommery is evident everywhere. In 1860 this woman took over the business after the death of her husband and began an international marketing campaign such as world had never seen before. A fan of the arts, she incorporated this love into her business - and the result is amazing.

The house is huge and elaborate on the inside as well as the outside. The foyer is filled with art and comfy chairs, and dominated by an immense and intricately carved oak wine barrel, able to hold 75,000 litres (100,000 bottles).

You descend into the caves through a set of huge wooden doors that open on to a monstrous 116-step staircase (think so big that both directions have passing lanes). The caves, unlike the small, dark and plain caverns we saw in other houses, hold expansive rooms decorated with statues, paintings and even murals carved into the walls.

Story goes that the artist who decorated the cellars spent a number of years below ground creating the beautiful works of art that you see. Ironically, he invested so much time and effort in the poorly lit environment that by the time he had finished his vision was so poor he could no longer appreciate his own work.

We then went next door to the Taittinger Champagne House. The house was formerly an abbey, and you can still see small reminders of this throughout the cellars.

The tour ended with a funky little museum that held the world's largest champagne bottle and glass - always a draw for those of us looking for cheesy tourist photos.

A note for those worried about getting intoxicated on a champagne tour: the free samples do allow you to taste the local fare, perhaps even get a little buzz, but the one-hour tours between each sampling keep you from ever getting drunk. That, after all, would not be classy.

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Champagne

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