A winemaker takes a sample from a barrel of Bollinger Champagne. Photo / Jean-Marc Patron / Ambiance Photo
A winemaker takes a sample from a barrel of Bollinger Champagne. Photo / Jean-Marc Patron / Ambiance Photo
It’s been 10 years since Champagne, one hour from Paris, received Unesco World Heritage status, but the region continues to push boundaries of innovation, writes Tamara Hinson
I’m standing in the dim, dusty network of tunnels fanning out beneath Ruinart, one of the world’s most well-known Champagne houses. Yes, there are endless racks of dust-coated jeroboams, quietly ageing in the dark humidity (proof of which, explains our guide, is the mushroom which has attached itself to one of the bottles), but there’s also something I didn’t expect to find in the cellars of a Champagne house dating back to 1729 - endless art, ranging from sculptures to hi-tech installations.
My favourite pieces include a sculpture shaped like a tree, erected in a cathedral-like section of the cellar and adorned with glass orbs which slowly move to a soundtrack of birdsong and rustling vines (the movements reflect real-time weather data relating to the Champagne region). Later, as we walk towards a rack of Champagne bottles stored at the end of a cellar, hidden tech means electric-green silhouettes – exact reflections of our movements – are projected onto the bases of the bottles.
The tunnels of Reims
It’s somewhat surreal, exploring vast networks of tunnels despite being just metres beneath the French city of Reims, in the heart of Champagne. But there’s a reason so many Champagne houses made this their base, and that’s the readymade network of tunnels dating back to Roman times, when chalk was excavated to build the rapidly expanding city. Reims’ 250-kilometre network of passageways didn’t just come in useful once Champagne brands set up shop – during WWII, they were shelters, hence the faded crosses I often spot, painted onto the walls to indicate locations of makeshift hospitals.
Step inside France’s Champagne region, where bubbling ambition meets historical charm, and every bottle tells a story.
Bollinger’s Barrel Masters
Not all Champagne houses had the advantage of ready-made cellars. Bollinger, for example, stores its bottles (12 million at any one time) in purpose-built cellars beneath the village of Aÿ-Champagne. During a tour, I learn Bollinger also owns a forest, which is handy for the coopers: craftsmen and women tasked with making and maintaining Bollinger’s Champagne barrels. Becoming a cooper takes two years of training – the same time it takes to train as a remueur, the person tasked with hand-turning Champagne bottles so the lees (sediment formed by fermentation) collects at the bottle’s neck, before being disgorged. Most Champagne houses rely on machines to turn most of their bottles, although most hand-turn a small percentage, including rare vintages. A good remueur turns 50,000 bottles a day.
From ancient Roman tunnels to James Bond-themed bottles, Champagne’s cellars are bubbling with history and creativity. Photo / Paul Murphy
Occasionally, guides ask me not to photograph bottle racks because of coded information scrawled on chalkboards by cellarmasters, and flash photography is generally forbidden to avoid disturbing the fermentation process. Finding the fine line between welcoming visitors and protecting their biggest asset isn’t easy for Champagne houses, although they’re certainly becoming more accessible. At Bollinger, where our guide points to a construction site set to become a Bollinger hotel, I spot a rare vintage, which hints at how certain houses are attracting new audiences. The La Grande Annee James Bond 007 Silencer Edition 2002 is part of Bollinger’s lucrative collaboration with the James Bond franchise – a bottle of Champagne tucked inside a case resembling the silencer of a Walther PPK (Bond’s preferred weapon), which only opens once you’ve cracked the combination code (it’s 007, unsurprisingly).
Boutiques for bubbly lovers
And if you can’t stretch to a limited-edition jeroboam of vintage fizz from your favourite Champagne house or don’t have time for the tour? Head to its gift shop instead. At Veuve Clicquot’s boutique, near a sunshine-yellow Veuve Clicquot table football and a chandelier made from Champagne glasses, there are Veuve Clicquot Wellington boots and stacks of Veuve Clicquot post-its (a steal at just $28). In Ruinart’s shop, my favourite items include beautiful vases made from old Champagne bottles. And in local supermarkets such as Carrefour, I find entire sections – not simply a couple of rows – dedicated to Champagne. A bottle of Veuve Clicquot costs just $64 (in New Zealand, you’ll struggle to find one for less than $99), while lesser-known brands cost as little as $35.
Bollinger 007 Champagne. Photo / Tamara Hinson
Tradition Meets Modern Art in Pommery
Pommery is another Champagne house that has thrown out the rulebook while still honouring its past. At its Reims headquarters, I find a beautifully preserved tangle of neo-Gothic, mid-19th-century buildings that now includes a museum and below ground, in the 18km network of cellars, I find countless pieces of modern art alongside reminders of its past, including a fencing mask hanging on the wall.
In the 1800s, Champagne bottles would explode so often that cellar workers donned facial protection and around% of any Champagne house’s stock would be lost this way. Later, my guide points to the curved roof of a cellar and the remains of a rusty metal track, a remnant from when bottles were placed in baskets and carried to the surface via rails. Today, electric buggies are cellar workers’ vehicles of choice.
Taittinger’s sacred foundations
One of the most fascinating cellar tours is at Taittinger. Its headquarters are located at the site of Reims’ former Abbey of Saint-Nicaise, built in the 1200s. The Roman-era tunnels beneath the abbey were nothing unusual, although it was the way they were used that set them apart. Benedictine monks used them to get to nearby religious sites, such as the Basilica of Saint-Remi, which was built in 1005 and still stands proud today. More recent visitors who left their mark include Private Debelfort, an infantryman who spent much of World War I constructing shelters and scratched his signature into the tunnel walls.
Country charm and champagne hotels
Beyond Reims, a meandering tangle of country lanes weaves through pretty villages with Champagne bars wedged between patisseries and the local stores, and past tiny cottages with personal vineyards instead of gardens. Vineyards blanket the rolling hills for as far as the eye can see, with growing areas divided into cru, premier cru and grand cru, depending on grape quality (grand cru vineyards produce the finest fizz).
My chosen base offers another reminder of the region’s ability to move with the times. The ultra-modern Loisium Champagne Hotel might not have turrets and towers seen on more traditional vineyard hotels, but its minimalist, low-slung design allows it to blend in with the rows of vines it’s surrounded by. Inside, I find vast expanses of black marble, beautiful oak walls and bedrooms with floor-to-ceiling windows next to seating areas with built-in Champagne bucket holders.
Beneath Reims and Épernay lies a hidden world of art, history and surprising tech — all devoted to perfecting the pop of Champagne.
Épernay’s sparkling legacy
It’s just a short drive from Épernay, the self-titled capital of Champagne (although I suspect Reims would disagree), which, in 2025, celebrates 100 years since its main artery was renamed Avenue de Champagne to honour the growing number of Champagne houses that popped up in the early 1900s. This historic avenue’s current tenants include Moët & Chandon, Perrier-Jouët and Pol Roger, and their eye-wateringly opulent headquarters have been carefully preserved. Almost all of them are fronted by ornate gardens and when I visit, the majority are filled with visitors working their way through taster flights of Champagne before embarking on cellar tours.
Reims and Épernay offer cellars full of art, history and Champagne. Photo / Tamara Hinson
Moët’s luxe experience Moët & Chandon has one of the swankiest set-ups of any Épernay Champagne house – a Versailles-like complex where highlights include a boutique in which the most sought-after items appear to be the limited-edition Champagne created in conjunction with Pharrell Williams and a Nez to Vin aroma kit. Containing 54 tiny, cork-stopped bottles of liquid aromas (everything from leather and hay to melon and muscat), it’s designed for those keen to learn about Champagne’s different aroma notes. The cost? Just $604. At which point I’ll remind you: Veuve Clicquot sells some rather lovely post-its for just $28…
