A raid in the Champagne

The annual trip of Piet’s wine tasting society “Het Derde Glas” took some time to fix. It was decided early on that everybody’s stock of Champagne needed a major boost.; especially us, as we drank our last bottle on New Year’s Eve. The main difficulty was the alignment of everyone’s busy family and work schedule, and finally a date in February was chosen. Unfortunately this coincided with the first weekend of our skiing holiday, which we had postponed to allow Paula to prepare for some of her final exams. But the need was high, and a compromise was quickly found. Piet got one of the first trains to Utrecht on Friday morning, where he met his friends, and drove off to the Champagne in an empty mini van. The girls went to school, left early, and after lunch Mary drove off in the same direction.

The fellowship had lunch in a Michelin-star restaurant near Reims, but had to urge the waiters as the first appointment was at 2 pm. When leaving we experienced the French way of parking: no space to manoeuvre (the rest is history - we used the Paris method to get out). At Barbier-Louvet, in the village of Tauxieres, the lady of the house received us, and she made her intentions pretty clear from the start: she would only open two bottles for tasting. In a very efficient manner she (now the “sour witch”) worked us out of her house, with a small score of bottles only. This looked again like the traditional misjudgement of our appearance. We drove to Theophile Petit in Ambonnay, were we stood for an empty door, despite agreeing a visit beforehand. We rang their mobile number and heard it ringing in an empty car. Ready to leave, we wandered around the garage, and found them (hiding?) in a cellar, oblivious to their guests. All was forgiven after another efficient, but friendly tasting. At our third address (Simart-Moreau, in Chouilly) the most remarkable was the promo-video, with the owner as lead actor, and badly chosen background music. Then we rushed to Grauves for our last appointment at Le Royal Coteau, which we already visited in 2011. They had called us a few days before, got the chairman to receive us, and even dug out the 2011 invoice. What followed was unlimited tasting (and a large purchase) and a very animated discussion, about selling your grapes to the devil (the big Champagne houses), the system of Millésimé and numbers of bottles and hectares, all badly translated in English by the assistant. In the end it was difficult to leave, the chairman was hanging on the van trying to direct us to the hotel in Epernay.
At the hotel we met the ladies, who had arrived as well. We all went out for dinner, the restaurant a pleasant walk away, through the impressive Avenue de Champagne, where all the main brands have impressive mansions. The next morning we drove off to Bassey for our week of skiing, the others continued on a Saturday of tasting, discussions and buying bottles.

 A large sign welcoming guests...not

The village of Grauves, with the barren vineyards in the background

Tasting at Le Royal Coteau