Drinking Champagne in Champagne

Today we went to Champange.  We are on the train listening to music on the way.  Champagne is a place where they make Champagne in France.  If Champagne was not made in Champagne, it would be called Sparkling Wine. 

This was the first Champagne company we went to today.  It is called Moet and Chandon.  They are the biggest Champagne company in the WORLD!!  We learned all about how to make Champagne from grapes to mouth.  They have some california grapes in their champagne, they don't even mention it!!!

This is a chandelier made out of champagne glasses in the Moet and Chandon building.  Moet and Chandon were two people who came together and started a Champagne company.  The Moet and Chandon property is over 23,000 hectares of grapes. 

We got to go underground and see where they store the wine bottles.  It is very wet down there.  The walls are made out of chalk.  The tunnels expand over 28 miles. They told us the process of how to make champagne, and why it is bubbly.  They want the Champagne to taste the same every year.  They said first the grapes must be picked.  Then pressed very gently.  The reason Champagne is always white is because the inside of all the grapes is white.  The way red wine turns is red is they let the skin sit with the grape juice. First they make wine with three kinds of grapes.  It is not bubbly yet.  Then they make wine out of the wine and put a cap on it to seal in the bubbles.  After that, they put it in these racks and there are riddlers that spin the bottles. I don't mean that they tell riddles to the bottles, and the bottles solve them.  Every 4 days the riddlers come and turn and push up the bottles in their holes.  After they have gone through the riddling process, they put the bottle in an ice cold bath.  Not to clean themselves!! But, to freeze the sediment in the bottle, then after it has been sitting for 5 minutes, they open the bottle, from the cork, then the ice spits out, then a machine puts the cork back in and seals it. Then it has to sit for at least 3 years!

In the middle of our trip, we got on a tour bus and looked at the Charpentier vineyards.  We did not get any pictures of the Champagne tasting.  Just to say, it was good!