Travels With My Cat

Champagne tasting in Champagne is just as good as it sounds.  Reims is a bustling little town that is famed for its magnificent cathedral built by grateful champagne-growing benefactors, pink Fossier biscuits, and, of course, champagne – the two of which go together in a typically French way – it would naturally be just too prosaic to dunk biscuits in tea – aux anglaises, so the uniformly chic French decided years ago that they would dunk theirs in champagne instead.

The magnificent L’Avenue de Champagne in Reims paves the way to many of the famous names in champagne, with several of the impressive-looking houses offering access to the public and tours of their cellars.  By venturing off the paying toll-roads into the countryside, picturesque winding lanes on the Route Touristiques du Champagne offer spectacular views of the vineyards themselves, beautiful rustic French villages (and Santa Clauses climbing ladders and hanging precariously out of chimneys and windows during the Christmas season) and friendly, tiny family-run champagne distilleries which encourage passers-by to stop in and sample their wares.