Today was filled with champagne-everything. We started the morning off with a visit to Mercier.
This house was much more toned down however when you walk in you're greeted with the famous Mercier cask. After we heard the story I realized that I did recognize this.
This cask was built by Eugene Mercier for the World Fair in Paris in 1889. It was the second biggest attraction after the Eiffel Tower. Mercier was also the first man to create a video advertisement. This is an understatement, but this tour was particularly interesting.
The Mercier tour was on a train through their caves so most of my coverage was in videos. I can show you all when I get home!
Mercier taste testing! This one was a little early but "when in champagne country".
This is my 3rd favorite of the ones we tried. We had the brut.
Mercier was a great way to start the day contrary to my initial belief that it was a little early.
We had a few hours after the visit before our next trip to Nicolas Fuillatte.
On our way into the city of Epernay we traveled along the street that holds many of the champagne houses in the world. That was one of the coolest things I saw on the trip. I have a video that I took from the window of the bus and you can see all the big house names go by. Make sure I show you!
Free time! I will never complain about getting some free time to roam about the city.
Almost got hit by a bus here. May have been the scariest/funniest experience of my life. Funniest later. Yikes.
Walking around the city of Epernay
This was attached to an outdoor bathroom.
We came across a sandwich shop for 2 euros that we decided on. Such a great lunch.
To waste some time we went to the grocery store and grabbed a few bottles of sparkling wine to share in the city courtyard.
First place that I saw Maker's!
Hangin out at the courtyard
We found a fairly discreet park bench. We had three hours to waste but technically you can't drink in the cities of France. When in champagne country?
Afterwards we were all craving some gelato. We didn't find gelato but we found a few macaroon shops and finally ice-cream!
Graeter's ain't got nothin on this.
Our next tour was of Nicolas Fuillatte. It's the newest champagne house, built on the tradition of champagne but modernized. Their tour shows everything involved in the process as opposed to the other houses who only show you a facade of their production.
This was the first and only photo I took on this tour. From here, Dave took my camera and you can start to see how the long hour days were taking a toll on our attention span here.
This is an example of what the other houses will never show you on their tours however at this point they are all modernized like this.
The riddling machines. All automated.
Champagne country will take your breath away.
Better pictures to come later
Walking back to the tasting.
I believe these were Wells' artsy shots from here...
From Nicolas Fuillatte we took a trip to the burial site of Dom Perignon and first made a pit stop here to see the landscape of Champagne, France.
It's absolutely gorgeous.
Dom Perignon is buried in a church, so to get there we walked around a small town in France.
Back on the bus it was to end our super long day of champagne. When we stepped out of the church it started raining - it was probably the first time it had rained in over a week. We were so lucky with weather on the trip.
Dinner on our own ended up being a two and a half hour dinner on the main street of Reims at a place called Le' Apostrophe. So so good.
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