Champagne |
1st September
Maison Belle Epoque, Epernay
Our room overlooks a formal garden, landscaped lawns, an arbour of climbing roses and a vineyard. The façade of this 18 th century mansion forms a courtyard at the front and a wide elegant frontage on the garden side, softened by the reddening leaves of a Russian vine. The design of the interior echoes the famous flowery bottles of Perrier-Jouet champagne in its belle époque style. The house has been furnished with original fittings from the period, the curvaceous lamp standards with their mottled glass bulbs, the tiffany lamps, paintings of the period and a magnificent door in the hallway which would not be out of place in the Musee d’Orsay in Paris. The reception rooms, painted in bright purples and turquoise, open out onto the garden.
Our day had started early. We met Gordon at Heathrow and boarded our club class seats among silver haired business men. The hostesses dashed along the aisles with a succession of snacks of champagne, breakfast and coffee. The landing took us by surprise.
After a long wait for our baggage and our hire car at last Gordon could drive us along the A1 towards Paris where we searched for the exit to Marne la Vallee but found ourselves going in circles around Meaux which seemed to draw us towards it like a magnet. Finally finding our direction, though on a lower road than intended, we stopped for lunch at a café whose bleak façade belied its cosy interior. We ate tender pieces of veal and spring vegetables laced with the tasty meat juices. Gordon, the vegetarian, had the vegetables on their own. Still, we were used to Gordon’s frugal appetite.
We arrived at Epernay by turning left at the town of Sezanne and passed several wonderful chateaux with slated turrets and old stone walls.
Epernay is a grand town built, presumably, on the Champagne business. The main square, La place de la Republique, and the grand Avenue de Champagne were lined with mansions owned by the famous champagne houses, the Maison Belle Epoque included.
We had dinner here, cooked by the ‘chef and chief bottle washer’, Alain. It was delicious – a salad of endive, wild mushrooms and mountain ham, fish in a light lemon cream sauce with spinach and fine cheeses, all accompanied by white and rose champagne and a delicious Bordeaux with the cheese. Our host was Thierry Budin whose family own the estate. He was cheerful, urbane and reminded us of a young Bernard Levin.
2nd September
The day started with breakfast in the dining room, yoghurt, croissant, confiture, orange juice and coffee. The sun had an autumnal mistiness in it and the shadow filled garden exuded peace and tranquillity.
An American lady called Carole took us on ‘the tour’ through the champagne process, the ‘riddling’ of the bottles (they have to be progressively turned to position the sediment at the bottom – or rather, the top, since they are stacked upside down), the bottling line and, most remarkably of all, the cellars which stretch 6km under the town. It was like walking through a deserted underground train network, empty but for cavernous alcoves stacked with maturing bottles of champagne.
During the war the cellars were used for keeping prisoners of war and messages and names were scratched into the moist chalk walls. Then Frederique, the PR girl, took us to eat at a restaurant overlooking the vineyards on the chalky slope of the Marne Valley, called ‘Le Royale Champagne’. We felt overfull at the end because the food was truly exquisite, including the petit fours and chocolate truffles at the end.
After lunch we drove into the vineyards in a balmy September sun with the wooded hills beginning to turn into their autumn colours.
8 pm
We are sitting under the rose arbour with a glass of Blason de Champagne. The reddening ivy on the chateau wall glows as dusk creeps into the garden. The roses are creamy against their dark leaves and the cropped velvet lawns soften into the twilight. Thin clouds, outlined with pale pink and yellow, mottle the sky like marbled paper. The spire of a church peers beyond the thick hedge of trees in the garden next door. Ralph and Gordon pour over a 19 th century book of old postcards. Ladies in huge bonnets stop to clear the vines, their stances reminiscent of Van Gogh’s potato pickers. There are pictures of the surrounding villages, more dingy than they are now and gone. Now the old fashioned lettering painted onto the walls, the faded advertising campaigns of yesteryear have been replaced with smart modern signage.
Let us back track. We stopped at the village of Hautvilliers. The small square with its ivy-covered houses and smartly painted shutters had been taken over by several army trucks, the army personnel lingering by their vehicles in a relaxed fashion. Their khaki uniforms were elegantly French, black cravats at their throats and jaunty black berets , the senior officers dressed like de Gaulle with lighter uniforms and flat topped caps. From time to time a local inhabitant would walk by, hands in pockets, and survey the scene.
We explored the Abbatiale Saint-Pierre, half of its ceiling obscured by scaffolding for restoration work. A basket of tools for the vineyards was hanging from the dome. I took a photograph of it framed against the light filtering through the drapery of the plastic sheeting. A box with glass windows housing the relics of saints stood on each side of the altar. An arm in one, a leg in another.
Alain served us a simple supper of salad and lamb chops with rose Belle Epoque champagne and a velvety Graves.
3rd September
East of Epernay along a tree-lined canal bordered by neat allotments with rustic sheds to us to Francoise and Antoine Roland at Billecart-Salmon. This was a more modest set-up than Perrier-Jouet. On the way we stopped at a bar in Mareuil-sur-Ay. A fluffy white cat sat on a table and two young men played on the pinball machine with a lot of clattering and banging. The café also sold fishing tackle. Fishing rods and nets hung from the ceiling. A large Asatian dog lay somnolent under the pinball machine. One of the young men wore a black t-shirt emblazoned with the skeleton of a baby and the words: ‘Butchered at Birth’. Ralph sketched a man in blue overalls, a motorcycle helmet on his knee. He looked as if he had stepped out of an Emile Zola novel with his squat brow and wisps of mouse brown hair sticking up from his forehead, a bulbous nose, small deep-set eyes and a prehensile jaw. The bar was called Chez Mimi.
Our visit to Billecart-Salmon passed off well. Our guide was Antoine Roland, one of the sons and export director. He was young, tanned and managerial in manner – and very French. He indicated the direction we were to go with a sort of ‘pouf’ sound and much gesticulation of the hands. His wine philosophy was interesting. The prime aim is to make good wine for, after all, the methode champenoise is not a difficult one and the secret is to make a good quality wine, rather than emphasising the marketing image as Perrier-Jouet and The Belle Epoque do. The house was discreet and contrasted with the flamboyance of Maison Belle Epoque. Antoine offered us lunch but we preferred to tootle along the country lanes to Verzy where we lunched at the Restobar le St. Vincent.
The patron was a solid, jovial fellow who looked like Columbo. It was past one o’clock when we arrived. Most of the chairs had been stacked away in the corner. It was a welcoming atmosphere for all that with red and white check oil cloths on the tables. Ralph and Gordon drank the local red wine, so pale as to be almost rose while I had ‘un coupe de champagne’!. We enjoyed the simple meal of salad and fish for me, country sausage for Ralph and an omelette for Gordon.
In the afternoon we went to Pierre Gimonnet et Fils, an smaller operation, the house itself very modest. Didier, the son, took us to his old vineyard, planted in 1911. The sun came out hazily and I made a few sketches of the fine views which included the Chateau de Saran where we are to stay tomorrow night. I ate as many grapes as I could, to cure my constipation, and it seems to have worked. I am much relieved!
4th September
This morning we are to leave the Maison Belle Epoque. I’ve finished the packing and am waiting while Ralph photographs the bottles in the Perrier-Jouet visiting room across the road. Morning light is best. Tonight we are to stay at the Chateau de Saran. I’m looking forward to that.
5th September
I’m a day behind with my diary, so will start with yesterday. We said our farewells to the Maison Belle Epoque and as usual lost our way with the conflicting navigational skills of Ralph and me, but eventually we found ourselves west of Epernay and north of Dormans at Vincelles where the co-operative champagne house of H. Blin was situated. Gordon thought it would be interesting to see a co-operative as a contrast to the elite world of Perrier-Jouet et al.
It was founded in 1947 by Henri Blin and a group of 28 wine growers and has been recently modernised by Tony Rasselet who reminded me of a squatter version of Jacques Tati. Julian Baker ( UK wine importer and old friend of Tony’s – they studied oenology together at Beaune) greeted us very cheerily. He is the spitting image of Bamber Gasgoyne). We were also greeted by Daniel Blin, son of Henri Blin, who had the barrel shaped physique of many a French farmer. He smoked cigarettes which seemed rooted to the corner of his mouth. His face was nut brown and when he took off his flat cap his forehead gleamed as white as could be.
We walked to the grape-pressing plant about 200 yards on the other side of the village where Tony proudly showed us the very green water purification unit which purifies the water used to clean the presses and then pumps it back into the river Marne. Then we walked back to the winery and tasted the champagne. In fact, we had several glasses with a lunch of terrine, cold meats, salad and cheese. They had thoughtfully provided a light lunch knowing that we were to eat that night at the Chateau de Saran. They are, it appears, extremely happy that Oddbins takes their champagne in quite large amounts. The quality of Blin has, by all accounts, improved greatly since the modernisation. We left with a very warm feeling about the welcome we had received.
We drove back into Epernay to the very top of the scale – Moet et Chandon – or, more specifically, Richard Geoffroy, chef de cuvee, cellar master at Dom Perignon. The Moet et Chandon building is very big and very splendid, the architecture reminiscent of 30s Bauhaus. Richard Geoffroy had a very French look. His lower lip protruded beyond the upper one and curled over it in an extraordinary way. He took us through the cellars which go on for ever, 28 kms, in fact, to the tasting room to try various champagnes, including a delicious 69 that tasted mellow, full of honey flavours. It was at this point that I began to feel extremely sleepy and had to walk around the room to keep awake. Richard was enthusiastically expounding his philosophy that his primary concern is to achieve the style of the grape to bring it out in the champagne. As we tasted various vintages he was using metaphors like biscuit, honey creaminess, silkiness, especially the creaminess as in the 69. He said he couldn’t think of a nicer way to spend a Saturday afternoon, even though he had just arrived back from California. He is a flying winemaker too, advising other wineries in the Moet et Chandon group, Green Point in Australia, Domaine Chandon in California, Spain and New Zealand. Ralph signed a book for him and after we had left we saw him walking down the road reading it as he went along.
It had become rather close, so we walked into a bar on La Place de la Republique for a drink. Then we bought Ralph a pair of shoes from a stall in the market place by a stone fountain with cherubs and angels. It was filled with brilliant flower displays. Ralph’s old shoes were covered in dust from the chalky soil of the vineyards and we felt we had to smarten ourselves up for the night ahead at the Chateau de Saran. We weren’t looking forward to the evening, expecting it be rather stuffy. We were in for a surprise.
We drove up a sloping driveway with manicured lawns and landscaped gardens to the Chateau which stood on a lofty wooded eminence as if the wide plain of the Marne existed for its benefit alone. The early evening sun softened the solidity of the facade with its tall windows and slate roofs. Stone walkways and patios reared above the valley below. The chateau rode the landscape like a ship riding the ocean waves. It seemed out of place to step out of the hired Volvo and enter this ancient time warp.
Our host, Dennis Foot was tall and silver haired. He would have looked at home in a London gentleman’s club. Standing next to him was a diminutive girl in her early twenties. She was the current ‘jeune fille’ taken in to work at the Chateau as au pair girl. The ’jeune fille’ changes every four months. This one, called Danielle came from Tunbridge Wells was tri-lingual with an Austrian mother. Two burly men wearing matching green jackets and waistcoats carried our bags into the lofty hallway and up the stairs to our bedroom which overlooked a wide stone patio with a fountain and flowerbeds of variegated blue flowers.
Suitably dressed up and Ralph in his shiny new shoes, we descended the staircase to the long receptions rooms with their elegant windows. Here again Dennis and Danielle received us and we were introduced to Bridget, Dennis’ wife, who would have looked at home taking tea at Fortnum and Mason’s or Pimms in Harrods. There were also three German guests, the representatives for Moet et Chandon in various German towns. We drank champagne and made polite small talk until we were summoned beyond a damask screen to a highly polished table where we took our places designated by hand written name cards. I sat between Dennis and Gordon. The burly young men who had carried up our suitcases were now wearing white gloves. As each wine was poured Dennis rang a crystal bell and gave a little introduction to the wine. We ate salmon, fillet of beef, cheese and a lemon sorbet for desert, each course accompanied by a different wine.
Dennis told little jokes and Bridget chatted in her socially correct patter. Dennis was quite funny about the Germans, trying to bring them out which was difficult to do as they didn’t speak English or French, though Danielle could interpret for them. Dennis kept calling the one called Helmut (stocky with a handlebar moustache and an implacable square face) ‘steel helmet’. We tittered politely.
It was as we drank coffee and more champagne in the reception room that the evening took off. First, Dennis asked us if we could do something to stir the Germans into the party mood, for they were sitting in a line on the sofa like the three stooges, their expressions friendly but blank. Dennis disappeared and then reappeared with his black watch tartan trouser bottoms rolled up, a top hat and silver cane. He sang and danced to a tape recorder. It was hilarious. We danced and sang and I was summoned by Bridget and Danielle to join in a cabaret turn to the accompaniment of the tape recorder – and still the Germans sat like rocks on the sofa, reluctantly joining in by rolling up their trouser bottoms (since it seemed de rigueur to do so) and cavorted round and round the room in a clumsy dance. By now, we English were well away, enlivened by quantities of pink champagne. Dennis and Bridget were wonderful, determined to give us a good time. I couldn’t believe they do this every night for six months (it is closed in the summer for cleaning).
We staggered to bed in the early hours having shaken hands with the Germans (and did I imagine that they clicked their heels?)
6th September
We woke feeling fragile but not too bad, persuading ourselves that the quality of the champagne had prevented a really bad hangover. The three of us had breakfast in a small sitting near the bedrooms. Gordon seemed the most fazed out. His eyes were positively pink.
We had persuaded Gordon to stay an extra day (quite easy to do really!). He had intended to spend a day in Paris but we bribed him with a picnic in a vineyard. First we had a ‘hair of the dog in a small café at Chouilly, a few miles down the road from the Chateau. We bought bread, cheese, pate, saucisson, tomatoes, wine and water in the town.
Above the village of Oger we found the perfect picnic spot with a fine view of the plain below with its pristine patchwork of vines bordered by the soft yellow of harvested cornfields that disappeared into a haze of blues and purples at the horizon. Our spirits were lifted by the gentle beauty of the scene, though we were sitting in considerable discomfort on the stony verge of a vineyard. The view was a compensation. The colours of the plain changed with the sun’s appearance from behind the clouds. We were eager to search for a hotel. I had remembered the pretty road we had come in on from Sezanne with glimpses of Chateaux and wooded copses. So we soon found ourselves at Montmort where we found rooms at ‘Le Cheval Blanc’. We rested for a few hours before an early supper and bed.
As I write, trying to catch up with myself we are sitting below Cramant in the middle of the Cote des Blancs, one the prime champagne regions. The vineyards rise and dip away from us. The surface takes on the quality of tissue paper that has been laid down. The wind rustles through them. The tops of the vines are translucent where the lowering sun catches them. It is peaceful. Ralph sits next to me on a stone wall, manipulating his polaroids of the landscape until the rows of vines twist and turn until we can truly call them Ralph’s ‘paranoids’.
This morning we drove Gordon to Epernay to get the train to Paris and his flight home. And then we bought our day’s picnic and headed for the sloping vineyards around Avize, Oger and Cramant.
There is activity in the countryside. We saw four men cropping off the outer leaves along the rows of vines to facilitate the picking. Here and there a van (usually white) is parked on one of the dusty paths that lead to the vineyards and a lone figure can be seen bending over the vines. In a hollow below Cramant stood a cluster of caravans, home to the pickers for the duration of the vendage. We saw another encampment in the woods on the road back to Montmort. Children played and women were going about their domestic tasks.
Outside Avize we climbed a steep hill and picnicked very comfortably on a stone water hydrant. The sun was warming up, a refreshing breeze blew across the small gorge facing us and we ate, gazed, drank our bottle of wine, wrote and gazed again. We wandered into the town cemetery. It sloped up the hillside making an interesting contrast to the neat rows of vines, a haphazard collection of stone mausoleums with fretted doors, stained glass windows, head stones with poignant messages to the departed, china flowers and embossed plaques that bordered on the kitch.
We are now back at the hotel and getting a good appetite for dinner which we will eat here as we did last night.
7th September
After shopping in Montmort at a tiny alimentation for our picnic and buying bread at the boulangerie we headed north towards Rheims, branching off at Hautvilliers where we had been with Frederique of Perrier-Jouet. The road took us in from above and we had a splendid view across the village to the Marne river and Epernay beyond, the odd roof glistening from afar and the far away cars catching the sun like earthbound shooting stars. The vines beside us rustled and creaked in the wind and all over the valley there are the tiny pinpricks of the cars as they pass along the roads.
We picnicked at a designated ‘point de vue’ just below Hautvillier. A stone block served as table and chairs and we tucked into saucisson, bread, tomatoes and wine with gusto. A lone motor cyclist shared the view with us for a while and then departed. Then two American couples drove up and disgorged their picnic with pink champagne. ‘Are you English?’ asked one of the yellow rinsed matrons. ‘Where are you from?’ and ‘Have you been to the States? Several French couples drove up, looked at the view and then left, as did the Americans. We told them they should go to Avize and Cramant to see the Cote des Blancs in its prime. And then we had the place to ourselves to sketch the river with Epernay beyond. Frederique had brought us here on our first day and I had sketched it then, but now we had more time and no one looking over our shoulders.
We drove into Hautvilliers. The town was very quiet and sleepy. The soldiers had departed. We admired the crooked main street and its white Mairie, its statue of idealised French womanhood and swathes of geraniums and busy lizzies. Tin signs above the doors denoted the skills and professions of the shop keepers: vigneron, fireman, carpenter and grocer. We drank a coffee in the pristine ‘Café des Sports’ and headed for Ay-Champagne to fill in some more gaps in our champagne exploration. Above the town the soil was unusually white. It is not surprising that here the wine growers receive 100% of the designated price for their grapes.
Travelling eastwards we passed through Mareuil-sur-Ay and followed a green canal with a fringe of pale lime trees. As we approached Bisseuil the vines stopped a road’s width from the water’s edge, snaking down steep ridges to a point where they suddenly stopped as if they had been forbidden to come any further. Following the canal to Tours-sur-Marne the trees lining the water thickened from slender windbreaks to thick forested verges. We took the road north east to Bouzy across flat fields of corn stubble, the vine covered hills visible in the background like the manes of horses. The plain, striped yellow and green, looked pale in the drizzle, like a faded coverlet.
Bouzy sits on the northern edge of this flat plain still within sight of the vineyards, discreetly proclaiming its 100% grand cru status. Its 1920s village hall and grand but austere Mairie were undergoing restoration. Beyond the town the flat stubbly fields continued. The harvest hay lay in cylindrical rolls around the edges. Doubling back to Tours-sur-Marne on the D19 we crossed an old stone bridge south of Athis and passed a field of white cows, fields of ripe maize, a reservoir with pale blue water that looked as if the colour had been squeezed straight from a tube of oil paint. We could almost see the brush strokes. There was a level crossing and a grey Norman church. Here the manicured champagne houses had given way to the less ostentatious economy of agriculture. There were crumbling stone walls and massive but shabby doors set into archways. Continuing along this flat rainy plain we passed a new house with post-modernist gables. It had been plonked in the middle of the flat landscape with no connection to its surroundings. We passed untidy farms, cabbage fields, plantations of dark brown sunflowers, rows of trees that formed necessary windbreaks..
At Les Istres et Bury we sat in the car and sketched a ruined church and then on to Flavigny with its pretty pink church and winsome poplar trees, like an oasis in the desert. How different Avize looked in the rain. We could see the cemetery lying against the hill, like a muddy duster laid out to dry. A large encampment of travellers had been set up beyond the road. The workers stood under tarpaulins out of the rain.
Oger glowed with flowers that dripped (literally) from walls, windows and verges, scarlet geraniums and purple magenta. Even in the greyness the houses looked bright and inviting. We passed a field of pink and purple clover. At Gionges we stopped the car and Ralph drew the church. It is old, of that there is no doubt, but the main structure, T-shaped at the back, has a thin round tin-roofed tower made of bricks. It backs onto a buttress on one side and a beautiful bricked up window on the other. So we parked the car in the drizzle and I gazed while Ralph did his drawing.
From Villiers-aux-Bois the forest around us thickened into a dense green tunnel. We continued through the wet forest, through Chaltrait with its tall slate roofed church, past the exquisite chateau at La Charmoye hiding provocatively behind tall trees and the tiny hamlet of Les Rouleaux to Monfort. As we rounded the bend of the Chateau Montfort a convoy of six caravans passed us on the other side of the road, more workers heading for the vineyards.
I had been looking forward to soaking in a hot bath but the water was cold through some plumbing fault. But I didn’t mind too much because it is so pleasant here. The food was again delicious – Melon half filled with the local grape spirit, Ratafia and then pigeon en cocotte. The wine: Chassagne Montrachet 1988. Need I say more? Yes, I can! Ralph had girolles, local mushrooms in a garlic sauce and pintade in a white wine sauce.
8th September
We are en route for St. Martin d’Ablois where we have a fantastic view of Epernay to the east with the wide sweep of the vineyards. The weather is bright and breezy after last night’s storm. We pass an old farm with a hay barn. A tree lined street leads into the town. There is a house sign on the wall proclaiming: ‘ Champagne Michel Hatat’, a 1930s ‘Foyer Municipal’ and a war memorial.
Vinay nestles into its valley. An ancient church or abbey sits on the hill. We have stopped at the junction between Vinay and Moussy opposite a sheer slopes of vines which look emerald in the sunshine. Above Moussy the rows of vines look sharp, like knife marks in butter. The back of the church rears up proud of its green manicured backdrop. The roof glints. We both did a drawing.
We sat on a bench in the churchyard of the Eglise de Charot. The church walls are creamy against the intense blue sky and the dark forest at the top of the slope. As we wandered round the cemetery the bells tolled midday with a deep reverberation that boomed across the valley.
We reached Chavot-Courcourt on the crest of the hill and dipped down towards Pierry down the valley with Epernay on the next hill. . We stopped at the Church at Chavot. It looks magnificent from here with the broad sweep of green slopes. The slopes splay out and a church spire beckons us to Monthelon. It has a tiny Mairie built of brick with white shutters and window boxes dripping with scarlet geraniums.
We returned to our picnic spot near Avize and the water hydrant and views of the vineyards and maize fields. It is breezy and clouds scud across the sky at a rapid rate, making us hot then cold in a second.
We have nearly achieved our day’s purpose to follow the tourist map of Champagne villages so now we have three main ones left. So we will dip south to Mesnil, Vertus and Bergeres Les Vertus and then back fairly early to the hotel to catch some hot water for a bath! The water was cold again this morning. So we went back to Avize and Oger. They were already harvesting chardonnay. There were bins of grapes by the roadside. Outside Oger little white vans were dotted across the landscape. It was a change for us, so used to the uninterrupted and empty tapestries of vineyards. The pickers’ heads bobbed above the level of the vines. I could see at least 30 vehicles at one time. On my left a man with a baseball cap tipped the pickers’ laden baskets into large plastic containers. A laden lorry passed by. At Mesnil-Sur-Oger there was more activity than ever. Men wore long black aprons. Rain clouds on our left. Across the flat plain of vineyards the white vans glinted in the sun.
At Vertus we stopped for a coffee at the Hotel Café des Arts. On Sunday we had asked for a room for the night. Inside there was a twisting staircase in the corner painted pink and cream. The coffee is awful, so maybe it’s just as well we didn’t stay here. Two characters sat at the bar, one was as thin as a rake with a long nose and a chin that curled upwards. He wore a knitted cap and kept peering into his black leather purse and jingled his money about. The other, in a soft grey cap had an upturned snout of a nose and a belly that hung like a balloon full of water over his belt. The patron, burly and black haired, was sitting at a table mopping up the remnants of a meal with bread.
We were looking forward to a bath on our return to the hotel. The plumbing repairs had just been finished and the water was beginning to heat up. So at last we had hot water again. What a lovely soak I had! We had an aperitif in the hotel bar and went out for a walk. There was a golden glow over everything. We walked along the Vertus road, passing an old stone gateway with a studded wooden door and two tin pigeons pivoted on the roof. Ralph drew it and I sat on a nearby bench looking at the high tiled walls of the Chateau and the venerable trees. Then we walked on to the 13 th century church taking a grassy path to a field of white cows and a majestic storm damaged oak tree. The church cemetery had its complement of china flowers, rusting crosses and marble plaques. At the far end were many new, hideous cement headstones. The church interior had an austere majesty with brilliant stained glass windows and a portico of arches. We walked back through the narrow side streets, admiring the russet brick cottages and the vermilion vines that clasped onto the walls.
And so our last day wound down to a close with an early supper and bed.
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