Au revoir to Paris

Thankfully, we left Paris on a Saturday.  Otherwise, the metro and airport train would have been full and difficult to manage with our luggage.  We are old! And each of us had a large bag, a small carry-on, plus a backpack.  My Lord, it is a lot, but at least we can still do it!  

Why not take UBER?  We say, why mess with it?  The metro and train combo is, by far, the easiest, cheapest, and fastest transportation to the airport.  No waiting for the car, wondering if all the luggage will fit in the car that shows up, will we encounter traffic delays, and will the car even show up?  Again, why mess with it?  Both the metro and RER B trains run every four minutes and stop at both CDG Terminals. 

We made it to Charles de Gaulle, easy-peasy, found the rental car place, and got our car, a BMW SUV.  Nice!  No tiny car-car for this trip.

Our plan for the day was to drive to Reims, the heart of France’s Champagne region.  It is a lovely agricultural territory with fields of wheat, sugar beets, barley, and rape.  Our goal was to take a look at the town, do some champagne tasting, and spend the night. 

We did just that and had a ball.  We toured the northern French countryside with sloping vineyards of grapes that will ultimately be France’s 2025 vintage champagne.   Besides seeing colorful scenery, we spent the afternoon with four young women from the Netherlands who, back home, play a new style of tennis called Padel together – look that one up. They drove to France from the Netherlands in a Mini Cooper just for a weekend of champagne tasting.  Talk about fun!  You gotta be young to do that! An interesting young couple from Germany also accompanied us on the tour. Originally from Iran, these two are smart. He is a graphic designer, and she is a medical researcher investigating cancer.  

In our tour of two wineries, we tasted six varieties of champagne and learned these tidbits. 

1. People drank wine centuries ago because water was neither clean nor healthy.  

2. There is no Champagne grape.  Champagne is made from blends mostly of the Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes, but each season, winemakers can include several other varieties of grapes to get the taste they are known for. 

3. Grapes used to make champagne are hand-picked and are not green grapes, but are purple or black.  The grapes are pressed gently to avoid gaining color and tannins from the skins. 

4. Champagne was “invented” by the French monk, Dom Perignon, in 1668, who found that his wine tasted better fermented in glass bottles rather than in oak barrels. The bubbly was discovered when he introduced the second fermentation to the brew. 

4. Many of his glass bottles exploded because wood was the original stopper.  The Portuguese advised Dom Perignon to use natural cork to allow the wine to breathe. 

5. Champagne is fermented 2 times today, some still first fermented in wooden casks, but most often in stainless steel vats, and a second time in the same bottle that you might buy at the wine store. 

9. A pop and a spew are not necessary when opening champagne.  Remove the wire cage. Put pressure on the cork with the thumb, and slowly turn the bottle six times.  The cork will gently rise up with no pop.  This method will preserve more of the bubbles.  Champagne is best enjoyed at a temperature of 44-50F 

For those in the pronunciation contest, the town of Reims is pronounced “Rahnce,” like France (Fr-ah-nce) without the F.  Why is it spelled with an M???  I surely do not know.  This is France! 

And just a bit about the town of Troyes.  This town was on our route from Reims to Dijon. A few miles off the direct route to Dijon, this old medieval town is a jewel. It still has original narrow, cobbled streets with crooked, half-timber houses from the 16^th century.  Except for not having suffered from the last wars, I cannot imagine how the town’s people kept the old houses and religious buildings all these years without burning them or pushing them over for a new, more modern town.  Exploring this town is like walking back in a period that existed centuries ago.  

Reims. It is pronounced Rahnce . . . The way French people say France, “Frahnce”, without the F.