Beverage Dynamics is the largest national business magazine devoted exclusively to the needs of off-premise beverage alcohol retailers, from single liquor stores to big box chains, through coverage of the latest trends in wine, beer and spirits.
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Retail EDUCATION 8 Beverage Dynamics • July/August 2015 www.beveragedynamics.com YOU CAN WORK ON VACATION IN CHAMPAGNE! BY HARRIET LEMBECK IF YOU HAVEN'T THOUGHT of Champagne as a holiday destination, now's the time. The Champenois, with tourist boards in both La Marne and in Aube to the south, are ready for you and your family. Champagne symbolizes success, celebration, joy and prestige. It also symbolizes sharing, and has done so since the time that King Clovis, the fi rst French King, was crowned there in 481. Today, at least 30 crowned Kings later, the Champagne industry employs 30,000 people. A visit to Champagne will show you new signs on touristic routes, new hotels, oeno- logical museums, timbered churches, the Lac du Der (an artifi cial lake in the Argonne Forest, which regulates the water fl ow of the Seine) where you can ride in small boats, plus six UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the départements of the Marne. And don't forget the famed 3-star Restaurant Les Crayères, established by the now-retired, re- nowned chef Gérard Boyer. STRUCTURING YOUR VISIT Start your trip as I did, with a fl ight to Charles De Gaul (CDG) airport in Paris. Then board the TGV high-speed train towards Strasbourg, and get off 30 minutes later at the fi rst stop, the Gare (station) Champagne-Ardennes, a region of NE France. Then a short taxi or bus ride will take you to the center of Reims, about 20 minutes away. The nearby House of Taittinger's cel- lars are built on the old destroyed L'Ab- baye de Saint Nicaise. The fi rst level has remains from the Thirteenth Century, while the second level dates to the Third Century, with its Gallo-Roman chalk pits (crayères), dug by the Romans. The tem- perature is a constant 20 degrees Celsius, and the humidity is 80%. The chalk ab- sorbs water. The monks had underground chapels there. In World War I it was used as a bomb shelter for families. FYI – the aromatic 'Brut Reserve' is the same as Taittinger's 'La Francais' in the U.S. Personally, I feel that nothing can surpass the latest expres- sion of Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs 2005, a Champagne that is never released until it is 10 years old. In the Marne Valley, where 66% of the Champagne vineyards are located, you would enjoy a visit to the Cham- pagne cooperative Dom Caudron, in Vrigny. In 1929, a priest named Aimé Caudron had the fi rst press in the vil- lage. Since 2010, this is a cooperative with 75 grower-members. In this part of the Marne Valley, the Pinot Meunier grows very well, with many hectares of old vines. Dom Caudron specializes in that grape, and they produce exceptionally fruity 100% Pinot Meunier Champagnes in different styles (Note: there are about 16 companies in the area producing 100% Pinot Meunier Champagnes). Dom Caudron still uses antique wooden presses, and has a small museum with a short fi lm on vineyard work. Their "Prediction" rosé Cham- pagne, Le Meunier au Singulier, is fruity and rich. The back label tells the harvest date and the disgorgement date, among other information. Champagne Charlier, in the Vallée de la Marne, is a small, family-owned Cham- pagne house – 'single grower' in today's parlance. This category has been brought to the fore by wine importer Terry The- ise, starting around the year 2000. It is now quite familiar and acceptable to serve Champagnes that are not exclu- sively from the famous houses. At Champagne Charlier, they use PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL LEMBECK, CWE, CSS Bottles stacked in a chalk cellar at Taittinger.