Top (Off The Beaten Track) Experiences in Champagne

August 9, 2023|Sara Underdown.

French bistro table with salad, bread, white wine, and Le Petit Gimios bottle

Champagne has an ever-increasing array of visitor experiences. These suggestions will get you off the beaten track and onto a path less followed.

L’Épicerie Au Bon Manger

7 rue Courmeaux, 51100 Reims

www.aubonmanger.fr

If there is a rite of passage to the heart of Champagne, then this would have to bit it. Au Bon Manger is a bona fide champagne institution, located in the better part of Reims, where the locals go and the pilgrims find their way. Pull up a chair inside or out and ask for a glass. Here, each one comes blind – there is no other way – unless you order by the bottle. It’s part of the fun, and theatre, but rest assured, owners Aline and Eric Serva will enlighten you moments after. Come for one of the largest collections of organic and biodynamic champagnes by the glass or bottle, but stay for the charm, a friendly conversation and delicious food sourced from small family-run farms. Select from the finest charcuterie, pungent cheeses, smoked fish and crunchy salads as you sit back and watch the local foot traffic go by.

Hot Tip...

Ask for their tip on the latest and greatest micro-producers you will not find anywhere else.

Visit Women-Led Champagne Producers

www.delectabulles.com

Peel away the luxe allure of the Champagne region and you’ll discover its lesser-known side; places and moments in history where women have played a key role. Award-winning travel guide and champagne expert, Cynthia Coutu, will make it possible. She’s a regional specialist (based in Paris), a passionate storyteller and connects champagne lovers with the women behind the bubbly through her company, Delectabulles. Tours are bespoke and off-the-beaten track, combining producer visits with history, geography, culture and a little gastronomy – but I would recommend a bike ride between the vineyards as a highlight. Among the possibilities are visits to Maisons where women have made a formative contribution – Veuve Clicquot, Henriot, Louis Roederer and Bollinger, for example – tastings with women cellar masters, and stopping by at some favourite producers of Cynthia’s making champagnes rarely accessible outside of France.

Hot Tip...

Make a pit-stop at Cynthia’s local boulangerie, Panade Paris, on your way to Champagne where celebrity ‘Top Chef’, Merouan Bounekraf, puts a gastronomic twist on iconic pastries that you cannot find anywhere else.

Faux de Verzy

If you're visiting the Perchingbar, take time to discover the Verzy forest with its hauntingly beautiful dwarf beech trees from which it takes its name. The peculiar characteristics of these trees is thought to be from a genetic mutation which results in them being able to fuse branches and propagate from aerial limbs, giving them a very wide canopy. It's an easy walk through a fenced reserve, so visitors can admire the trees without damaging the delicate root system. Some impressive specimens have been given special names. Look out for the Maiden’s Fau; legend has it that Joan of Arc once napped at the foot of the tree.

A Night Out at Le Wine Bar

16 Place du Forum, 51100 Reims, France

www.winebar-reims.com

Adjacent to the Place du Forum, in Reims, there is a great little wine bar, Le Wine Bar by Le Vintage, which feels so comfortable. It's run by two brothers, Nicolas and Pierre–Louis Papavero. They, and other bar staff, are the friendliest people imaginable.

Everybody who visits Reims should go to Le Wine Bar more than once. It’s a great way to learn about French wines because the brothers know their stuff; their family owns an amazing wine shop behind the cathedral, Le Vintage, very useful for stocking up the cellar, or just drinking at home.

There's a generous number of still wines on tasting by the glass, not to mention a delectable wine list of 500 or so bottles and magnums.

'Le OFF de la Champagne' is an annual event hosted by Le Wine Bar. It occurs on the first Monday of Champagne Week (aka Le Printemps des Champagnes), in April each year. Many growers and small domaines come together to show their still wines and their newly released champagnes in a casual setting. Le OFF is totally crowded with fun, joy, and the clink of glasses, as growers ply their friends in the crowd with their foaming champagne brews. Visitors and locals alike spread onto nearby footpaths and into the parking lot in the Place du Forum.

Note to self…when in Champagne, don’t miss a week without a session at Le Wine Bar, at least.

Hot Tip...

In the warmer months, book a table outside well ahead. Take your chair and take in the atmosphere of enjoying champagne under the starry sky into the early hours of the morning.

Halles Du Boulingrin (markets)

www.marcheduboulingrin.fr

Start your day in the Champenoise way with a Pain aux Raisin or Pain au Chocolat, a take-away coffee (if you can stomach France’s taste for long-life milk) at the 'Boulingrin', which opens three times a week (Wednesday, Friday and Saturday).

Halles du Boulingrin is famous for its specialty produce and especially good for locally made Paté en Croute, which I enjoy with porc et comté. Producers come from all around the Marne region and are particularly passionate about their terroir.

Since its inauguration in 1929, the Halles du Boulingrin has been an integral part of Reims' identity and symbolises the restructure of the town after the ravages of the First World War.

Le Printemps des Champagne

www.printemps-des-champagnes.com

Champagne’s annual growers’ super tasting event - Le Printemps (Springtime) des Champagne - occurs in April. What has now become a hugely successful internationally attended show-and-tell event of 25-plus groups began in 2009 with a single group of young and vigorous producers, Terres & Vins de Champagne, organised by Raphael Bérèche. They invited buyers, writers, photographers and guests to meet them in historic Aÿ, at Hotel Castel Jeanson, owned by the Goutorbe family, who also attended in their own right as vignerons and winemakers.

Today, many people in the trade believe it's worthwhile making a pilgrimage for just this occasion.

The aim has always been to show quality and diversity, both from the vins clairs (still wine) of the prior harvest, and newly released finished champagne from many harvests prior. Few people get to try champagne still wines the way they were before the bubbles were harnessed for our pleasure but, during these few days, that foreshadow of pleasure is ours.

The beautiful town entices many champagne friends at once and camaraderie fills the air day and night, week-long.

Hot Tip...

You can only attend these exclusive tastings if you are friend in the trade or have a benevolent sponsor! Make sure you are known to one of these incredible growers to ensure endorsement.