EPERNAY – here you learn to love the tiny bubbles that are synonymous with joy and happiness….

[slideshow] Situated at the heart of the world’s most prestigious vineyards, Epernay, the capital of the Champagne region, attracts over 500,000 visitors every year. With over 30,000 hectares of vineyards, enchanted forests, and bordering the River Marne, this region has the UNESCO World Heritage Site Distinction.

The Town of Epernay, which traverses these famous vineyards, is located between the Marne River and the hills, which is at the junction of the “Tourist Routes of Champagne”. Here, you will find the famous L’Avenue de Champagne “The Avenue de Champagne”. Some of the world’s famous Champagne producers, mansions dating back to the end of the nineteenth century, and large trading houses line The Avenue de Champagne. Beneath this grand Avenue lies 110 kilometers of chalk cellars with over 200 million bottles of Champagne – this makes this Avenue one of the most prestigious streets in the world! Some of the notable Champagne houses located on the Avenue are Moët & Chandon, Mercier, Boizel, Comtesse Lafond, De Castellane Esterlin, Perrier-Jouet, Pol Roger, and De Venoge.

The Avenue was recently renovated and redesigned as an avenue-park creating a pleasant place to stroll and admire the historical buildings with tall ornate gates. With the renovations complete The Avenue de Champagne now has wider sidewalks (almost as wide as the roadway), cycle paths, heritage trees, 
with a special emphasis on lighting (which beautifully enhances the facades and entrances to the Champagne houses). 


Avenue de Champagne is also used for many champagne events, including the upcoming “Habits de Lumière” Christmas lights in December.

A number of the Champagne houses provide one-hour tours and a tasting. Dom Perignon provides a tour in which you will tour historical areas such as the place where Napoleon drank wine. Mercier provides laser-guided tours and elevator rides. Moet and Chandon cellars tours include seeing the million bottles of Champagne stored. The tour of Chandon lasts for about 45 minutes. At Mercier you can see the 160,000 gallon barrel that took about 20 years to complete and stores over 20,0000 bottles of Champagne.

Once you complete a tour and indulge in a tasting, you get to see for yourself that…
Drinking Champagne in Epernay is like listening to Mozart in Salzburg.

How to Get to Epernay

By plane:
international Airports : Paris Orly and Paris Charles de Gaulle

By train:
Epernay is linked with Paris – 10 direct trains a day (1 ¼ hr)

By car:
Epernay is located at the junction of 2 main national roads: 
- RN51, connecting the north countries to the south of France and Europe) 
- RN3, linking the west to the east

Motorways:
1 1/2 hours from Paris and 3 hours from Dijon and Calais
– A4 (Paris-Strasbourg) 
- A26 (Calais Dijon)

Tourist Office Location
Office de Tourisme d’Epernay 

7 avenue de Champagne 

BP 28 
21 201
EPERNAY

PERCHING BAR….More Than A Champagne Bar

Forget the traditional champagne bar – the Perching Bar has just the set the “bar” extremely high on being unique…. so high, in fact, that you are 18 feet up above the trees.

Recently launched, and under the ownership of Olivier Couteau, the Perching Bar is the world’s only Champagne bar in the trees. It is in the midst of Parc Arboxygene, an extreme adventure park in Verzy, France. Situated in the heart of the Champagne region, it is a mere 15 minute car ride from Reims or Epernay.

Access to the Perching Bar is by a wooden walkway. Venturing through the lush forest, up two wooden bridges you come to a suspended 60-meter footbridge – What an amazing view!

La Cabane Perchee, the company that designed the Perching Bar has kept the classic exterior tree-house structure including the stilts. The design concept has a wrap-around wooden terrace complete with puffy sofas, armchairs, and stools for 30 guests. Here you have magnificent views of the zip lines, lush treetops, and the region.

Once inside the bar, you are greeted by a contemporary interior that is chic-simple. With lots of natural wood and white leather seating, it also comes complete with 4 swings. The Perching Bar is also eco-friendly – all the lighting is supplied by solar panels.

Here you can swing while enjoying the views and a perfect glass of champagne! The Champagne List – by the glass or by the bottle, Olivier is the curator. He currently offers a selection of Champagnes from smaller producers to Grandes Maisons:

Champagne Pehu Simonet
Champagne G.H. Mumm
Champagne Bollinger
Louis de Sacy Champagne

The Perching Bar is a glamorous winter playground and the place to be on Thursday through Sunday for a glass of bubbly!

The Perchingbar will be open from 21 March to 31 December each year, from Thursday to Sunday in the high season and just at the weekend out of season.

51380 VERZY
tel. : +33 (0) 6 89 44 73 68
E-mail: @ olivier.couteau arboxygene.eu

www.arboxygene.eu

www.tourisme-champagne-ardenne.com

Fine-tuning Champagne….without a dose of sweetness…

Dosage, or the addition of a judicious amount of sweetness into a finished Champagne just before release, has been an important part of the region’s winemaking process ever since Champagne was invented as a sparkling wine. Today, however, many producers are reducing the level of dosage in their Champagnes. Some are choosing to dispense with it altogether.

It ties to a recent trend in Champagne – the proliferation of zero-dosage cuvées, also referred to as non-dosé or brut nature. At their best, these Champagnes offer a scintillating liveliness and clarity of expression, showcasing their winelike fruit flavors and emphasizing their chalky minerality.

At Larmandier-Bernier, Pierre Larmandier has been making a brut nature called Terre de Vertus since the 1995 vintage, sourced from parcels that yield exceptionally ripe grapes. “When we first created it,” says Larmandier, “we found that the wine was already harmonious as it was. It didn’t need any dosage.”

Emmanuel Fourny of Veuve Fourny also specifically selects old-vine parcels and parcels prone to high natural ripeness to make his Blanc de Blancs Brut Nature. “For a brut nature you need more substance,” he says. “My goal is to get a natural roundness and richness through a selection of vines and a selection of terroir.”

Not Just About Sweetness

Dosage is typically thought of as a measure of sugar: Add more if you like a sweeter Champagne, use less if you prefer a drier one. This view is oversimplified, though, as the overall harmony of a Champagne relies on the interaction of the dosage with the wine’s other components.

Most notably, Champagne’s naturally high acidity can be overly aggressive; historically, dosage has helped to bring it into better balance.

Tasting the finest examples of undosed Champagne, you realize that the region’s elite growers have actually succeeded in creating an entirely new style of Champagne. These can be a joy to experience: the unmitigated minerality of the Terre de Vertus; the seamless harmony and grace of Franck Pascal’s Sagesse; the vinous intensity of the wines of Vouette et Sorbée.

Champagnes like these are derived from a different paradigm than those made in the classical style, striving for a different type of expression. Traditional Champagnes by houses such as Louis Roederer or Bollinger, or grower Champagnes like Vilmart and Henri Billiot, use the dosage to balance the wine’s other components and amplify the fruit flavors, creating a rounder, more generous and often more complex wine. Non-dosé Champagnes, on the other hand, tend to thrive on a sense of transparency and a sleek, unadorned minerality.

Achieving Harmony

To be successful, a non-dosé – or undosed – Champagne must have sufficient depth and presence to achieve harmony without added sugar. This means the grapes must be riper and more concentrated.
“We have seen a progressive decrease in our dosage almost equally in parallel with our improvements in viticulture,” observes Jean-Hervé Chiquet, owner of the Champagne house Jacquesson.

When the balance isn’t right, though, and particularly when a non-dosé Champagne lacks the depth from the vineyard to back it up, the acidity can feel steely and harsh, and the fruit meager, flattened and inexpressive.

It’s possible to create a properly balanced Champagne that doesn’t include added sugar at all. But most of the time, simply reducing the level of dosage on an existing brut cuvée doesn’t work; the balance of the wine is lost. The final acidity should be appealingly vital and brisk rather than piercing, with the ripe depth of fruit playing the ameliorating role that dosage otherwise does.

Dosage is a hotly debated issue in the region. Even among Champagne’s elite growers, not all agree that non-dosé represents an ideal solution.

“I’m not necessarily a partisan of zero dosage,” says Francis Egly of Egly-Ouriet, who believes that small amounts of dosage bring his wines into better balance. “I compare it to cooking – you need to find a balance to bring out the best in a dish. Sometimes a Champagne will have a slight bitterness that disappears with just a touch of dosage.”

What’s important to remember is that dosage is much more than just a sweetener. “Dosage exists as an agent for harmony and balance,” says importer Terry Theise. “Many Champagnes are low in pH and can be shrill or bitter without dosage.”

It’s not always easy to achieve that harmony. Sometimes it can seem as if wines are being forced into a lack of dosage out of fashion or ideology rather than allowed to naturally find a balance on their own.

Ultimately, the question that wine drinkers should ask isn’t whether a Champagne contains dosage or not, but whether the wine is harmonious.

“The point, always and forever, is to taste, and be guided not by some doctrine you’ve promulgated,” Theise says, “but by your palate and your simple wits.”

The Chronicle

Once Upon A Dream Sleep Capsule Debuts At DesignMiami Along With a Flute of Veuve

Created by designer Mathieu Lehanneur, Once Upon A Dream is an innovative sleep capsule combining the best in science and design. It was unveiled for the first time in the US at DesignMiami, held from 30 November – 5 December 2010. DesignMiami is the marketplace for limited-edition design in Florida.

The sleep capsule has been designed to create a space that evokes resynchronization through touch, sight, smell and sound. The innovative design of sleep capsule, manufactured in Italy, provides ideal condition for a good sleep; from precisely the right temperatures to the right lighting. A hanging live plant, which is powered with a low grade current flowing through it, helps in enhancing the ambience.

In celebration of its US debut during DesignMiami, Veuve Clicquot has offered champagne bedtime stories in the Once Upon a Dream sleep capsule for guests, a luxurious experience which included a flute of Veuve Clicquot with each reading.