Visiting Epernay
*Cue the bubble machines!!!!*
Jk, I am not talking about that kind of bubbles, but I love me a glass of champagne! I love it so much,
the Champagne region in France was the first trip we planned, just weeks after arriving in Germany.
<Heads off plane and immediately goes to drink champagne in CHAMPAGNE> In all reality there are
many reasons to visit the Champagne region of France, but I found there were some helpful things
to know before you book your next trip to the capital of bubbly. In honor of Valentine’s Day this week,
I am giving you all the tips about the land of bubbles. Make sure to grab a glass while you read this
and certainly start your V-day meal with your partner or galentines with a glass! If you are still
holding out for the perfect gift, go big and ask for two plane tickets to France!
Ok, so you want to experience the Champagne region, and then you realize it spans many miles,
small towns, and cities... Where should you stay?! Which champagne houses are the best?! Can
you just walk in or do you need reservations?! What should you eat?! I personally did not feel like
this trip was easy to book. I spent HOURS reading reviews of people’s experiences in the region and
on different tours, so I am hoping to help you with your quest to find bubbles!
There are a few cities throughout the Champagne region worth visiting: Châlons-en-Champagne,
Epernay, Reims, and Troyes to name the bigger ones. I wanted to get the most bang for my buck on
my first visit, and so we decided on Epernay. Where, oh where, should you stay in Epernay? What
is dreamier than imagining a glass of bubbles in the French countryside in the world’s most famous
Champagne houses? When I picture where I want to stay, I also picture me with my Chanel bag over
my shoulder and pulling up in my Mercedes G-wagon. Oh wait… that’s not me; that’s every famous
blogger I see on Instagram. First thing to remember, when booking any trip to Europe, you can plan
your trip on a budget and still have an amazing time. I am married to a military service member and
for the first time in my adult life I am unemployed. I want to do all the fancy things and do them in
style, but our bank account says differently. So, instead of staying at the ritzy hotels downtown, we
stayed at a home away that we found on booking.com called La Villa Geiss and I highly recommend
it. It would be great if you were traveling with 4-6 people because there was plenty of room too.
Biggest perk for us was that they allowed dogs and had parking outside.
If we weren’t traveling with a dog and had all the money in the world, I would stay at the Royal
stunning and has won a ton of awards.
More budget options:
Parva Domus (Adorable B&B located right on Champagne de Avenue)
Next, what should I do there?
Well, the obvious answer is drink champagne. We visited for a weekend but only really had about a
day and a half for actual champagne exploring. There is so much more than just tasting the
champagne while visiting, like the incredibly rich history of the region, the industry, and the families
that have been in the business for many generations. I also really enjoyed learning about the
process of making the champagne and how each house does it a little differently. Did you know that
all champagne comes from only three different types of grapes? They are chardonnay, pinot noir,
and pinot meunier. And that you can have red grapes in a white champagne? Drinking and
appreciating champagne is certainly much more enjoyable (if that was even possible) after learning
so many interesting facts about it.
Below are all of the houses we visited. KEEP IN MIND- every house whether you are doing a tasting
or a tour requires a reservation (this applies to lunch/dinner at many restaurants as well). This is one
of the reasons having a plan is so important to make the most of your trip. There are a lot of options
for what to do when visiting each champagne house. You can drink champagne, have a tasting,
cheese or food pairings, and take many different length tours. I have described everything we chose
to do and I feel like we had a very thorough experience. When booking reservations, I recommend
sometimes difficult to navigate and both sites have great customer service if anything changes with
your bookings.
This was by far our favorite house that we visited and that’s saying something considering our entire
tour was in FRENCH and we do not speak a word of french. Why were we so excited you may ask?!
Because this tour offered the opportunity to use a SABER. The day before our booked tour, we were
told it was cancelled because the English speaking tour guide for our tour was sick. This was the
tour we were looking forward to the most, so we decided to show up anyway! When we arrived we
were told that there was only a tour being done in French but that if we decided to stay, they would
give us the really short version in English and we said YES PLEASE! We had so much fun walking
the beautiful grounds of this place and having the opportunity to learn how to open a bottle of
champagne with a saber (I am available to book any of your upcoming parties for lessons). The mini
castle owned by the estate on the edge of Epernay is used for tours and was bought in the year
2000 and completely renovated. It is absolutely stunning and worth visiting.
Moet is the literal powerhouse of the industry. This house has access to 12% of the region’s grapes,
produces and sells approximately 36 million bottles of champagne each year and has over 100
million bottles of champagne stored in their Epernay cellars alone. Although the most commercial
and least personal, this tour is worth seeing just to understand the sheer magnitude of the business.
You will have the opportunity to tour part of their 110km of cellars underneath the streets of Epernay
(that is 68 MILES).
De Venoge
This house was not offering tours while we visited but they did have their tasting room open. The
architecture of this house was so beautiful and the tasting room had a great ambience although
unfortunately we found the service to be lacking. I also imagine that visiting in Spring or summer
would be lovely to sit on their outdoor patio (just don’t expect to be treated very well!).
We arrived to this tour extremely happy from our tour at Comtesse Lafond and honestly I don’t have
a lot of memories of learning new information from this tour (I blame the champagne). You do get the
opportunity to walk through their enormous gallery of stainless steel fermentation tanks which was
very cool. And their champagne was yummy so if nothing else, a tasting is worth it.
I visited this house on a later date on my way back from Paris and it deserves to be on the list and I’ll
tell you why! This is one of only 5 champagne houses that does 100% of their first fermentation
process in barrels instead of stainless steal. There are only 7 full time people working at this house
and everything they accomplish is incredible. It was a very unique tour that I highly recommend
Additional Houses I hope to visit in the future in Epernay:
(There are others in Reims, but I will post separately on those!)
So now you have a place to lay your head and entertainment scheduled, it’s important you fill those
bubbly tummies with food! Below are all of the places we tried and what we thought along with
additional recommendations we didn’t have enough time to try.
C Comme is a wine bar where you can get some yummy charcuterie along with your champagne
tasting. It is actually the only place we visited on our trip where we had the opportunity to compare
different champagne houses during a tasting. When we visited C Comme they were not taking
reservations, but it is always worth checking! We left herea little tipsy and heading straight across
the street to grab a pizza from L’Evrasienne.
 |
| The face we make when we are about to eat pizza. |
As we walked back to our home away after a little too much bubbly, we devoured
this pizza, but we liked it so much that we went back the next night and ordered another
pizza as our dinner. Now I know what you are thinking, if I visit France, I don’t want pizza,
but hear me out. France can get pretty pricey and because we were spending so much on
our tastings each day, we decided to save a little and eat pizza two nights in a row. #worthit
On the same road there were some other options like doner, and a sandwich shop if you
want other inexpensive options.
This restaurant is 2020 Michelin rated and was a true French delight. We chose to book this
restaurant for lunch in between tastings and we did the 5 course meal. You will 100% need a
reservation for this restaurant but I highly recommend it for lunch or dinner.
If you need a quick pick me up or snack as you are exploring Champagne Avenue, this cafe has
HUGE lattes, plenty of seating, and wifi!
Additional recommendations:
Important things to note about the season you choose for visiting! Most of the champagne houses
shut down from the end of November to the beginning of April. If they aren’t shut down they very
likely have very limited hours. With that being said, we took our first trip in mid-November and had
no problem booking tours, but it is something to be aware of if you have your heart set on a specific
place. My sister and I visited in January and it was very difficult to find a place open, and Epernay
was basically a ghost town. Another thing to keep in mind is that the harvest season is in mid-
September to early October. Each house told us this was an exciting time to visit because while you
are there you can take a trip out to the vineyards and witness the process of picking the grapes
(everything has to be hand picked!). I haven’t witnessed this, but I would imagine that some of the
smaller houses will have less availability for tours during this time.
As they say in Champagne, “the best champagnes are the ones you like.” It’s that simple.
XO,
Theresa
