Richard Frisbie :: Epernay, the Capital of Champagne

Reims, France, is the actual Capital of the Champagne District, but Epernay is known as the capital of Champagne.

    Epernay is a small town less than two hours from Paris by train, at the hub of Champagne country where all the wine trails meet. The surrounding countryside is home to hundreds of small Champagne makers. On Epernay's main drag, fittingly named Avenue de Champagne, you'll find the headquarters of most major Champagne producers such as Mercier, Castellane and Moet-and-Chandon. Individual tours and tastings are available at each, but for one-stop shopping, visit C Comme Champagne in the center of town.








C Comme Champagne


   It's a champagne bar and retail store offering smooth live jazz on weekend evenings in a very comfortable and classy hangout. They feature 2050 champagnes from over 50 local vintners, and  offer Champagne "flights", or tastings, as well as champagne by the bottle.
    My extensive research there (HA!) taught me that I liked champagnes made with Chardonnay grapes, but that adding 40% to 80% of Pinot Meunier grapes suited my tastebuds better. The Pinot Meunier grape is similar to the Pinot Noir grape, and is used extensively in champagne blends. It is acidic, fruity, and tolerant of cool weather, perfect for the local climate, and apparently, my palate.


    the champagne list

    Speaking of my palate, just down the street from champagne tasting heaven is La Cave à Champagne, a family-style Michelin-listed restaurant where prix fix menus range from 17 Euros to 44 Euros. I had the 33 Euro, Menu Gourmand, a three course meal with champagne as an ingredient in each course and served with glasses of champagne! For a champagne lover this is the perfect place to dine after too long in C Comme Champagne.



    The first course was a surprise riff on coquille Saint Jacques that included salmon, shrimp and white fish with the scallops. It is the house specialty, and so full of seafood it could have been a main course. The creamy mushroom and champagne sauce they were baked in made for a deliciously fragrant and tasty dish. Oh my, it was good!



    Next was a foie gras stuffed chicken with scalloped potatoes and mashed celery root. The mild and smooth taste of the foie gras worked perfectly with the chicken while keeping it sweetly moist. The champagne augmented gravy certainly helped there, besides adding a wonderful aroma to the complexity of tastes. This was a rich dish, especially with the scalloped potatoes, but the earthy flavor of the mashed celery root balanced the others nicely. Had there been bread (What? A French restaurant without bread?) I would have welcomed the extra calories to help sop up the gravy!



    I have to take a moment to confess that the food was so good I did not write down the different champagnes that kept arriving with each course. (Maybe it was the extensive champagne tasting I did before lunch.) But in the heart of champagne country there were plenty of little brands we'd never see here to fill my glasses with. Each one went down more smoothly than the last. An extra dry rose accompanied my parfait. (Framboisere sur coulis des Fruits exotique) Layers of vanilla ice cream, sweet cream and fruit (mangos, cherries and strawberries) melted beneath my spoon. I gave a good account of myself for a guy who rarely eats dessert. I had to eat something with all that champagne!



A view from Hautvillers down over the grapes, with the famous signs inserted in the view

THE ORIGINS OF CHAMPAGNE
    The nearby town of Hautvillers is reputed to be where production of modern champagne was developed. Hautvillers (or High Village) is a picturesque hilltop community in the Champagne district that was originally built around a 7th Century Benedictine Abbey. It is famous for the over 100 signs that grace each residence and business. Through the years a friendly competition developed among the 850 residents, with each vying to create a more beautiful sign than his neighbors. The result is a marvelous collection of distinctive signs on all the buildings, each identifying the owners' occupation or the business located there. These creative and colorful signs would be enough reason to visit Hautvillers, but many make the pilgrimage to see the home of a monk, Dom Perignon, the "inventor" of the champagne process.


                                    The village square at Hautvillers

Give me health for a long time
Give me work sometime
Give me love from time to time
But give me champagne all the time.
                Dom Perignon

    Actually the process of making sparkling wine had been around a long time before Dom Perignon came on the scene. But, it was he who had the idea to use cork as a stopper for the wine they called champagne, instead of the wooden stoppers previously used. He also perfected the riddling process and the second fermentation. That, and the use of stronger glass bottles to contain the bubbly, are the signature of the Benedictine Abby's wine - the first modern champagne. Today, Dom Perignon is recognized for such high quality that it is a valuable long term investment for the world's most distinguished champagne collectors. It is the most expensive champagne in the world, with a recent auction of two bottles of the "rarer than rare" 1959 vintage of Dom Perignon Rose bringing a record $84,700! According to Richard Geoffroy, Dom Perignon Chef de Cave: "Dom Perignon Rose Vintage 1959 is a rare, superlative, mythical vintage. Powerful and solar, its light will inspire the creation of Dom Perignon Rose forever." I wish I could have tasted that!
    Coming soon - Taittinger Champagne and How Champagne is Made

TOURISM
Official French Government Tourist Office http://www.franceguide.com
Reims http://www.reims-tourisme.com
Champagne http://www.tourisme-en-champagne.com

CHAMPAGNE
Taittinger http://www.taittinger.com/
Dom Perigon http://www.domperignon.com
C Comme Champagne http://www.c-comme.fr/

FOOD
La Cave à Champagne in Epernay
 http://www.la-cave-a-champagne.com

LODGING
Best Western Hôtel de Champagne (Epernay)
 http://www.bw-hotel-champagne.com/
Rate: 95.00 Euros and up, Breakfast 12 Euros

Richard Frisbie, FOOD Correspondent:

RICHARD FRISBIE is published twice a month to Gather Essentials: Food  
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BIO - Richard Frisbie writes culinary travel articles, is a columnist for his local newspapers, and is a regular contributor to the many Hudson Valley, Catskill Mountain and other regional New York publications. His most recent addition to that list is a wine column called "Fruit of the Vine" for Life in the Finger Lakes magazine. Online, he writes frequent articles for EDGE publications and Travel Lady, as well as Gather.

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