Champagne in Reims

Have you ever been to Reims in France?

From the Netherlands it’s only 3,5 – 4 hours drive and you can combine it with a visit to Paris or Normandy. Just a long weekend away from home and tasting the best Champagne. Cheers!

Where to stay in Reims or Epernay?
What are you looking for? Want to enjoy the city or want to have a real getaway on a chateau?

Have a nice breakfast in the city, enjoy the Christmas Market in the wintertime or the nice teracces in the summer with this hotel you have a view on the Cathedral and it’s only a few steps away from the centre. I stayed here in the Apartcity comfort Reims Centre hotel a few times. It has a perfect location. Large rooms, parking close to the hotel, but take in mind, payment on a saturday on the street. I believe it was free parking on a Sunday. I would suggest not to book any breakfast with it. There are a lot of nice places in the city where you can have a ‘petit-dejeuner’, small-breakfast, but you can make it as big as you like with a nice croissant or other pastries.
Do you want to stay in the middle of the city centre? We’ve stayed recently in the Best Western Premier hotel de la Paix this location is perfect! After a day of tasting Champagne and seeing the beautifull wine stocks all around you. You don’t need to go far and just have a small stroll through the centre. It’s close to many restaurants, Central station of Reims, public gardens to walk through and walking through the shopping streets of Reims.

I’ve booked my parents for their anniversary into the Chateau de Rilly. Which isn’t in Reims, but in between Epernay and Reims. You will be surrounded with wine stocks in this area. We’ve visited Hautvillers where you can find also a variety of champagne houses, The statue of Dom Perignon and a google to ‘Point de vue de Hautvillers’ for a magnificient view.

Now more important, Which champagne houses to go to?
One of my favourites is Pommery, in Reims it really is a mansion, here you can have a tasting and tour through the cellars of Pommery. The Grand Cru Royal is one of my favourites. The good thing of a visit through the cellars is that at the end you get the opportunity to taste some of the champagnes. After this you walk to the shop inside the mansion and check out one of the nice deals for some bottles. For picking up it’s easy to go by car to the champagne houses, but you see people go by bike or e-bike now as

Mumm, in ReimsChampagne house was totally different but we had a really interesting tour through the cellars as well. They provide the largest champagne bottles for Formule1 and other Championships. From Mumm Champagne I really like the Millésimé.

Finally in 2023 I got the opportunity to go to Veuve Clicquot, in Reims. We got a tour through the cellars and finished with 4 Veuve Clicquot Champagnes. Full of passion our guide spoke about Madam Clicquot and her invention. Her invention of the ‘pupitre’ the wooden riddling rack which can hold 60 bottles and are turned daily called the ‘remuage’. This made the champagne clear, sparkling and got the yeast into the top of the bottle. This way, after a few months, the yeast will be frozen and released out of the bottle whithout losing to many champagne and sparkle.

In Epernay we went to Champagne house Mercier. He was a real entrepreneur who liked to pioneer. He was the first who arranged tours through the cellars, first with carriages pulled by 4 horses and later invented a train to go through his 18 km of underground tunnels. He created the world’s largest wine barrel. With this large barrel he went to Paris for the Universal Exposition in 1889, a floating bar at 300 meters above ground in an hot air balloon anchored to the Vincennes Castle. He was constantly busy trying to make Champagne accesible to everyone without doing anything to the quality of the Champagne.

The next day we went to Chateau de Boursault. The previous owner Madame Veuve Clicquot left it to her grandchildren and they have sold it.
In 1927 it was bought by a wealthy diamond dealer in Paris and they started to give the estate a new live. With 20 hectares of vineyard the owner, Nourhan built the cellars under the chateau and started the champagne production. All champagne of Chateau Boursault are eco friendly. All champagnes are certified with sustainable viticulture and High Environmental Value. It is more difficult to produce, more time consuming and more unpredictable to make. But being more sustainable and taking good care of the environment for the future makes it all worth it. We’ve tasted 4 Champagnes. Millesime 2014, Prestige and Brut Nature. Later on, even though we aren’t really into the rosé champagne, we also tasted the Rosé de Saignée. The person who did the tasting spoke with so many passion about this Champagne due to the difficulty to produce it and if you close your eyes you wouldn’t even know you are drinking rose. My favourites were the Millesime 2014 and the Brut Nature. The Brut Nature is very dry. After the rain stopped we also walked around the estate. unfortunately it wasn’t possible to go into the chateau, but it has a magnificient view on all the vineyards.

Still enough Champagne houses to go to as there are so many more with all their own stories.
Tip 1: If you want to go to the famous champagne houses, plan/book the tastings in advance as they are fully booked very soon.
Tip 2: Think of the timing of the tasting when you only go for the weekend and need to drive back home. Safety first.

Which Champagne is your favourite?