Sunday was our main day in Epernay and it seemed inappropriate not to start the day in the spirit of the region, so we opened a bottle of blanc en blancs, champagne with only Chardonnay (white grapes and white juice) to accompany our fresh croissant and pain au chocolate breakfast spread sourced from the local bakery with a queue long outside the door! Our little one tasked me with searching the top shelf whilst she inspected the bottom to make sure we didn’t miss any good cake options! 

Pressoria

In champagne, you taste geography

For our third trip, we took the kids over to an interactive experience called pressoria in neighbouring Ay, which is housed in the old pressing house for Pommery.

The museum explains the history and delicate balance of nature’s seasons through producing champagne with an interactive sensory experience from start to finish.

The exhibition was surprisingly good for all ages and the kids were entertained and attentive throughout. It was without a doubt one of the best museums we have visited although we think the kids now know more about champagne production than basic science.

Hautvilliers

We headed up to Hautvillers which is one of the prettiest villages in the region with panoramic views of the champagne countryside around the idyllic village.

We stopped by an independent smaller grower – Joseph Desruets for some quick champagne tasting of their zero sugar extra brut, special cuvee and blanc de noirs. 

I am a fan of blanc de noirs but K preferred the special cuvées. The best solution therefore was to get a mixed collection of bottles!

Cellar Tour & Tasting

We had a tour booked at Mercier in the afternoon and ambled down avenue de champagne past all the champagne houses and finally on to Mercier. It was a constant “are we there yet” and with reflection it should have been met with the reply: “yes we’ll just stop here on the way” – next time that’s the way to do it!

The Mercier tour is fantastic for children, its informal and fast paced and luckily for us we had a group of guys who were just as boisterous as the kids and didn’t mind our children playing horsey rides whilst they sampled the wine. A quick sample of the standard label with an introduction to start.

Going down to the cellar was in keeping with the founders philosophy of champagne for the masses without compromising quality with unique and elaborate marketing plans. The tour was immediately engaging as we descended 10’s of floors to the extensive tunnels deep underground where they age and store the wine. 

The train takes you on a tour deep through the tunnels which are amongst the most extensive in terms of size for efficiency in the area. The tour was via microphone so was loud and no issue for kids talking but there was enough to see to keep them entertained and it was only 20 minutes and constantly on the move. The tunnels connect moet at one end of the avenue to mercier at the other (a good 15 min walk). These are now part of LVMH.

Our next trip was to Paris and back in 1889 Mercier transported their 200000 bottle ornate cask to Paris for the Exposition Universelle exhibition to advertise his champagne for the masses. The story has it that it took 14 days to travel with 24 oxen and 18 horses for the hills. Trees and houses were removed along the route to accommodate the large horse and oxen drawn cart exceptional!

I would like to apologise to the older gentleman who stopped me in the street asking about the Orange Boutique. I didn’t have a clue what he was asking but I persevered and proceeded to relay much of the store information from Google and some elaborate directions that clearly were wrong. After a few minutes he gave up looking more confused than when we started.