French Navy

Yesterday, 7 friends and I headed to the Champagne region of France. It's been on my list of places to visit for a while now. I can even remember the year I spent in Austria wanting to go. So I made the arrangements and took care of most of the logistics for the trip.

My friends, David and Rita, who are stationed in Mons, Belgium and who speak fluent French helped us so much with this trip. They suggested visiting a smaller champagne house, away from the bustle of either Reims or Epernay, and then visiting a larger one for the underground tour. So we took the suggestion and we were lucky enough that they wanted to join us as well.

We all met at the champagne house Gobillard in a small town near Epernay, where we probably could have tasted as much as we wanted, all at no cost. They figure that the more you drink, the more you buy. It was really good and I liked that it was a small place. I bought 4 bottles and David and Rita, who are leaving in July, stocked up because they recently found out you could ship alcohol home to MD in your household goods and MD only taxes you 40 cent/gallon. That's nothing!

David was so sweet to make reservations for lunch for all of us at a 1 star Michelin restaurant in Epernay. The food was AMAZING. We ordered off of the 3-course menu, which was only 17 euro. I had snails in a cream sauce over an artichoke, then salmon lasagna, then a cheese plate for dessert, all with a glass of champagne. (Thank you David and Rita!!)

After lunch we said our goodbyes to David and Rita, then headed to a large champagne house, Mercier, for a tour of their underground tunnels where they age the champagne. The tour consisted of a movie, a snails-paced elevator with animatronics, and then the laser-guided train through the underground tunnels.
We went for the 3-glass tasting instead of the 1, but none of us liked the champagne at all. Good thing we had some at Gobillard.
By the end of the tour and tastings, we were exhausted. It had been a long day. We checked into the hotel, which was the nicest, cheapest place I'd ever stayed--60 euro for a 4-person room, and then we went to the grocery store for French wine and champagne. We had no idea what wines we were buying, so my criteria were 1.) French, 2.) under 6 euro, and 3.) that I like the label. I bought a bottle of decent champagne and a couple other cheap ones too and a bottle of creme de cassis for kir royales.
As always, I laughed a ton and I'm glad I was able to accomplish something on my list. I'm just grateful I have the ability to do these things and with some really wonderful people. I'm a lucky woman.