Champagne Wishes

Remember when I told you about the school's first field trip?  Well, this time around we weren't taken at 3:30 in the morning to a place that reeks of fish, cow organs and stinky cheese.  Instead, at 7:30 am (a little more reasonable of a time) we were driven to the Champagne region of France where we visited the cellars of Taittinger, a private family-owned Champagne house that has cellars dating from the 4th-13th century.  Now, that is more like it as far as a field trip goes!  Below are some photos from the Champagne extravaganza.

Arriving in Champagne.  Please note how everyone is wearing big coats because it was freezing in Reims.

Too bad I only had this sweater to wear!  Apparently, the weather forecasters in France are just as bad as those in the U.S.

Taittinger's champagne cellars which house millions of bottles of Champagne.

The white paint mark denotes which way the bottle should be turned.  All the bottles at this Taittinger location are turned by hand still.  Pretty impressive.

I can't help but smile when surrounded by 3 million bottles of Champagne.

Here are the sizes of Champagne Taittinger has.  The one on the far right is a half-bottle (next to it is the regular size bottle) and the one on thefar left is what they call Nebakanezer.

It holds 20 regular bottles of champagne and is special order only.  Hmm.  I wonder why.  It's not like it isn't practical or anything.

Up close, you can see how dusty the bottles get.  They can stay in the cellars for up to 10 years.

Ruins from the 13th century church/monastery on which the current Taittinger building stands.

These handwritten tags denote how many bottles are found in a particular alcove.  Yes, there are 95,687 bottles of wine in the space you see below...

They are placed there by hand.  Pretty amazing.

Here is what the bottles look like when ready to be sold and consumed.  Fancy schmancy.

Time for a tasting.

And a Group B photo op.

Then on to lunch.  You've got to feed a hungry bunch especially after giving everyone two glasses of champagne to taste.

And especially after plunking down another bottle of Taittinger on each table for lunch.

After our visit to Champagne, we drove out of the way to see the vineyards where the grapes are grown.  However, after a huge lunch, a ridiculous amount of champagne and still no coat, I must admit that I snapped this photo through the window of the warm bus where I had settled into my cozy seat.  Can you blame me?