Champagne

We left the very quiet village of Trepail and after 30 minutes drive parked at an aire on the canal in Ay en Champagne.

It is very close to Epernay where all the big champagne houses are - but there are a lot here too. Billie Carte Salmon is just along the road but you have to email ahead to request a visit.

We went for a walk along the canal and then back up the Main Street.

We then had a van lunch before Glenn went for a reconnaissance cycle while I was busy with a short phone meeting.

Afterwards we both went cycling the other way up the canal a few kilometers to the next small village. There were lots of fishermen - so they obviously have a bit of success!

We then got back to the van and went to visit one of the champagne producers Gerin that Glenn had found out from other campers does tastings and sales if you just walk in.

We met Marie who was part of the family of owners and had a personal tour around and were told about the process to make champagne including the riddling of turning the bottle every day while upside down on a rack to get the sediment into the neck of the bottle. There are new riddling machines that do this automatically in big crates.

The sediment is then removed by freezing the neck of the bottle, removing the cap and the ice then shoots out due to the pressure. The rest of the champagne is then left in the bottle.

We then had tastings of 3 champagnes, a fruity one, a very dry one and then a rose. We liked the first and last one so bought a few bottles. They produce 50,000 bottles a year so it’s a relatively small enterprise.

Back at the van we had a cup of tea and the sun came out so we sat on the bench out front. We were joined by an Irish couple who were on tour for 5 weeks. We had a good chat about where we had been. We are finding it hard to remember the names of places we have been and what happened where. We need to start reading this blog from the beginning again! It then started getting colder so I went to the warmth of the van while Glenn went to get some sunset photos.