Leg 1...Champagne

We have just returned from our 2 week tour of Europe. We visited Ireland, France, Portugal, Italy and Northern Ireland. Fewer stops would have probably made the trip more manageable but all together we had an amazing time. I'll be posting each location seperately with the exception of Ireland and Norther Ireland as we didn't take a whole lot of pictures there.

This first post is the Champagne region of France. We visited 2 cities and a number of little villages. We stayed in the larger city Reims and spent an afternoon in Epernay. If (more likely when) we return I think we would opt for staying near Epernay as it is more charming, smaller and picturesc with the Avenue de Champagne, a street lined with Champagne houses.

This trip was all about the wine. We had 3 scheduled visits to Champagne houses and in retrospect we wish we had done more. We visited Mailly Gran Cru, Nicolas Feuillatte, and Pertios-Moriset. It was quite a range of production with Feuillatte the largest producing 100million bottles/year (that's not a typo), Mailly ~500,000 and Pertios producing 80,000. We didn't know what to expect booking tours with "Total Wine" attached to it and let me say that we were not disappointed.

Our first stop was Mailly which is now and has always been owned by 25 families. They hand dug cellars out of the chalk soil back in the 20's and are only house that only produces Gran Cru Champagne. Xavier was our host and was amazing. We saw the entire facility (6 floors covering about 25 meters deep). We had a tasting of 8 Champagnes and were given a gift of one of their finest (and my favorites) when we left.

Next we went to Nicolas Feuillatte. Because they are not a "winery partner" with TW we had a lower expectation for this visit, however again we had a comprehensive private tour followed by a 6 wine tasting and a gift. The most impressive fact is the high quality of wine produced in this facility with such massive output. All the wines were delicious.

Finally we visited Pertios-Moriset. Our host, Vincent, is the co-owner (with his wife), winemaker and owns some of the vineyards. His winery is literally in a neighborhood where he makes his wine in an oversized 2 floor garage. He is very enthusiastic and thoughtful character sharing some of his ideas for marketing his product. We had a very nice tasting after the tour and again a wonderful gift, a 2008 Blanc de blanc.

We spent some time in Reims. They have a very ornate cathedral, some restaurant and shopping areas. In Epernay we ogled at the Champagne houses and found a post office to mail 2 of our wines back home. Apparently you can't ship alcohol to the U.S. (legally) but our French post man was very helpful and eventually we got it sent off (it even arrived!!). This first leg of the trip was awesome and energized us for the Ryan Air flight to Portugal...which we would need.