Champagne!

So, picking up where I left off...

After the ceremony and festivities at Belleau Wood, we left Château Thierry and headed for Reims, the capital of Champagne! I had been before, but Aunt Maureen and her friend who was with us had not! Sunday night, we just checked in to our hotel and then explored the center of the town. We found and went in to Notre Dame de Reims Cathedral. It was evening, so it was pretty quiet inside. I always like visiting old Cathedrals and this one is particularly cool from a historical perspective; It is the place where the monarchs of France were traditionally crowned. The first to be made king there was Charles, who was able to get to Reims after the city had been re-taken from the English by Joan of Arc. What I didn't know was that it was also home to stained glass windows by Marc Chagall! Very cool stuff! 

Chagall's Windows!

Monday, we did the typical Champagne tourism thing! We wanted to go to one of the Grands Maisons de Champagne (the traditional, well-known houses) for a tour of the cellars and to learn about how it is made. We went to Pommery. The tour was very interesting. In addition to learning (well, re-learning for me) about the techniques for making Champagne, we learned a history of the house. The owners have traditionally been very into art, and the ELEVEN MILES of cellars (mostly full, by the way) featured subterranean art exhibits as well. 

Our tour was, of course, followed by a tasting. We had decided to get the tour that let each visitor try two of four champagnes, the Brut Apanage , the Rosé, the Brut Royale, and the Springtime. Since there were three of us, we decided to have everyone get the Brut Apanage (a good baseline) and then we each got one of the other three so that we could all try. It has been a while so I can't actually remember who liked what, but I DO know that it was a really fun morning!! 

Note the 3 different kinds in the photo!

For the afternoon, we went to Épernay, which is where a lot of the vineyards are for some of the houses! Since we were there on a Monday, and the tourism there is biggest on the weekends, we didn't get to go in many places. However, it did leave us driving around the vineyards. It was so fun to pass a field and see a little stone plaque, almost like a grave stone, that labelled the field with the name of the house that was going to use the grapes for champagne. We passed Roederer, Moët & Chandon, Taittenger, and many others, and the fields were breathtaking! 

Pretty views of Champagne vineyards!

My personal favorite stop of the day was a little town that we ended up in at the top of a hill, called Hautvilliers. This is the "cradle of Champagne," apparently. We would never have known that unless we had gone! It was home to Dom Perignon, the benedictine monk known as the father of Champagne, and after whom a "Grande Maison" is still named! 

Hautvilliers!!

We had a nice last dinner in Champagne on Monday and then left to go back to Germany on Tuesday. It was a great trip!! Not many people can say that they celebrated the end of their 1L year with Champagne... in Champagne! Many, many thanks to my Aunt Mo for having me, Abe for driving, and to the Marines for such an awesome ceremony! 

GO USA!!!* 

SKS

*As a reminder to my future self, this is included in reference to the Germany-US soccer match in the World Cup; both teams advance to the round of 16.