Champagne

The Champagne region, centered around Reims and Epernay, is hallowed ground for wine lovers. Below the surface lie hundreds of kilometers of chalk cellars — carved from the same ancient seabed that gives Champagne its distinctive mineral character — holding millions of bottles aging slowly in darkness. The Avenue de Champagne in Epernay, home to Moet & Chandon, Perrier-Jouet, and Pol Roger, has been called the most valuable street in the world, with an estimated billion bottles sleeping beneath the pavement. In Reims, the great houses of Veuve Clicquot, Taittinger, and Ruinart occupy magnificent chalk crayeres — former Roman quarries — that plunge thirty meters underground. The experience of descending into these vast cathedral-like caverns, surrounded by racks of slowly maturing bottles, is genuinely awe-inspiring. But the region offers far more than wine. Reims Cathedral, where twenty-five French kings were crowned, is one of the supreme achievements of Gothic architecture, its facade adorned with over 2,300 statues including the famous Smiling Angel. For gastronomy, Les Crayeres — a Relais & Chateaux property in a stunning Belle Epoque mansion — houses Le Parc, which holds two Michelin stars and offers one of the finest wine lists in the world. Smaller grower-producers (recoltants-manipulants) like Egly-Ouriet, Jacques Selosse, and Agrapart offer intimate tastings that reveal the artisanal side of champagne — book directly through their websites as these visits are highly coveted. The vineyards themselves, particularly around the Montagne de Reims, the Cote des Blancs, and the Vallee de la Marne, offer gentle walking trails through some of the most valuable agricultural land on earth.

Highlights