daffydevil

I will be in Reims in May and would like to visit a champagne house that also includes a visit to their vineyard. Is there any champagne house in the area that offers this type of tour? I will have a rental car to get around and the tour would have to be in English. Thanks for any assistance.

YVR Cockroach

Just an FYI. The major Champagne wineries have most or even all of their grapes grown for them (they give a lot of assistance, not just financial, to the grape growers). You'll see a lot of vineyards with names/badges of the major Champagne houses at the front of a row of vines.

Driving through the villages, you'll find signs with all the vignerons in the village/town. Not all (or probably, very few) are open for visits though.

FWIW, I read a decade or two ago that the price difference for land designated as Champagne AC grapes and land that is not is something in the order of €800,000 per hectare vs 1/20th if even that.

stimpy

I don't know about Champagne, but you can tour vineyards in Burgundy. Some really nice ones. At the right time of year you can nab a few grapes that have fallen. They are delicious.

lhgreengrd1

I particularly enjoyed the fallen grapes from La Tache.

Nanook

We had a private tour of the Moet et Chandon cellars in Epernay several years ago. Their tours are not operating now, but will start again in October. Their website says to visit Mercier cellars instead. Here is the link and you have to say you're over 21 to access the website, but tours are bookable online.

http://www.champagnemercier.fr/en/cellars-visits

ILuvParis

This is probably too late for the op, but perhaps will help someone else.

We did an Epernay vineyard and lunch tour with this vendor. It was supposed to be a small group (maximum of 6 IIRC), but there were only two of us, so it ended up being private. Here is the description. We had such a great time, the guide was great and we've talked about doing it again. I highly recommend it. If you pay extra at Moet, you can get additional tastes of more expensive Champagnes. All in all, we had at least 12 tastes. This is much preferable to driving yourself (which I've also done), for obvious reasons!

http://www.manstouch.com/champagne-tours.html

(Don't be alarmed by the name of the website, which I thought sounded like a gay massage site - it's not. )

iceblueshoes

Sorry to highjack this thread, but I've been considering doing a day trip to Champagne.
I'm curious though if it's possible to do a day trip out of London and taking the Eurostar to Paris and the SNF (French trains) to Champagne. I'm not picky of either Reims or Eperney.

I know that one of them has a Champagne Blvd where you can sample various Champagnes which is what I thought I would end up doing. However if I were able to squeeze in a vineyard tour, I'd be even more ecstatic. The kicker is can I even do it (I know it would make for a long day) but also is it possible w/o breaking the bank?
I"m also not going to drive myself, because what fun is that?

Thanks in advance!

PS- this would be in mid October.

Gagravarr

London to Reims by Eurostar + short walk + TGV can be done in about 4.5 hours. The return is more like 5, in part due to the Eurostar checkin rules. That'd be quite a lot of travelling for a day! Return price can be had for just over the Ł100 mark. Try this loco2 itinerary (for a random June day) as a guide. Champagne-Ardenne (on the high speed line just outside Reims) is only a few minutes quicker on the way out, a little quicker on the way back, so could be considered too.

If you took the first Eurostar of the day out, last one back, you'd have enough time to see some vineyards and visit a few houses, but you'd be a bit knackered! With an 8.30 departure from London (so probably 7.30 leaving your Hotel) you could be in Reims for lunch, see a champagne house and a look at a vineyard (with help from a taxi) while still making the last train.

Heading up to the "Champagne Lighthouse" would let you see quite a lot of vineyards and walk past some vines, that wouldn't be too hard to reach by taxi. Not sure if you'd have time for a formal vineyard tour though

iceblueshoes

Thanks for that bit of info.
Would Epernay (sp?) be better? Gives me a bit more breathing room/time. As for lunch, I"ll grab something from Tesco the night before and bring it with me.

I'd be more than willing to take the 5-6am train out from London if need be in order to maximize time. I"ll just sleep on the train.

Speaking of train, is the train out to Reims/Epernay scenic or a bit of a snoozefest?

I thought you were calling me loco with that site... I do admit it is a bit crazy but at least this time I'll have a hotel to return to.

Thanks again!

PS- and here I was thinking I'd have enough time to get back to Paris for dinner before catching the train back to London... lol

Gagravarr

For that same random June date, Loco2 shows for Epernay pretty similar journey times to Reims, just with fewer options. (I've only ever visited Reims and the area just around it, so can't comment on how it compares to Epernay, sorry)

If you got the 17:53 train home from Reims, you get 1 hour 39 minutes for the Paris Est-Nord change. Without luggage and a quick walking speed, it's 10 minutes walk and 30 minutes checkin. Several of the restaurants by Gare du Nord will do you a nice meal in that hour if they're not too busy. Ask as soon as you get there, have them confirm the kitchen is quiet enough to do a rush order, and have them show you which items on the menu are quick. Terminus Nord is where I'd suggest trying first - good food and were fine about doing me dinner in only 45 minutes once!

stimpy

Sorry but a good meal at Terminus Nord costs as much as a modest hotel would cost in Epernay or Reims. Or more with wine. It sounds like he wants to do this on the cheap so maybe a quick sandwich from Quick is in order.

Personally I would go with the modest hotel in Epernay so you can enjoy a bit more time in Champagne. When traveling such a trip there can always be something that goes wrong and you completely miss out on the experience. Or miss your train home and have to spend a lot more for a hotel in Paris. If you spend the night in Champagne you can have a proper visit to one of the great Champagne houses. Or two.

iceblueshoes

While I would like to stay in Champagne a night, the reality is that I just don't have the time. As it stands now my plan would be to arrive to London on Monday from Stockholm, go to Champagne Tuesday and then on Wednesday afternoon head to Reykjavik before returning home on Friday.

Missing the train back to London is NOT an option!
Although missing my flight back and having to stay an extra day or 2 well... that's what sick days are for

stimpy

If that's really the case then you'd better not bother with that portion of your trip. Trains are sometimes late. Sometimes very late. And if you are going to time the TGV it to catch the last Eurostar then you might find yourself out of luck. I do such trips very often and always leave a few hours to transit stations in Paris just in case. And many times that has saved me from missing a connection. If the trains are on time well then I have time for a meal or drinks in Paris.

Gagravarr

If you were leaving the next morning, the risk of missing a train scuppering your onwards flight would be too big to risk it. However, if you don't leave until the next afternoon, you should be fine. If part of your journey on a railteam member train is delayed causing you to miss your next railteam connection, they'll put you on the next available service no matter your ticket. Both Eurostar and TGV are railteam, so you'd be covered, see here for details

When the Eurostar is very late and people miss their last UK train onwards, those with CIV protected tickets get put up in hotels at Eurostar's expense. I'm not sure if SNCF do the same if a late/cancelled TGV make you miss the last Eurostar though, so you / your travel insurance might have to cover the night in Paris if you did miss the last Eurostar

I wouldn't recommend trying the trip for a novice or easily stressed/worried traveller. Otherwise, read Stimpy's warnings, and consider if your personal experience/stress tolerance/sleep needs would cope with that. (Personally, I've done trips just that crazy, and I've had an unexpected night in Paris after a TGV cancellation made me miss my connection, but I know lots of my friends wouldn't be up for either, so YMMV!)

stimpy

SNCF will absolutely not put you up in a hotel. They will give you a slip of paper to fill out and return by post and maybe if you are lucky you will get some kind of small reimbursement if your train is more than an hour late or something like that. I have top elite status and get taken care of relatively quickly with those, but I think people without status wait a looooong time to hear back if they hear back at all. And the reimbursement can only be used at a SNCF ticket office for a future train.

As for Railteam and connections it works like airlines. If you buy both trains on one ticket, then they will move you to the next train. If you buy separate tickets, then you may have to buy your own ticket for the next train and pay the prevailing rate. Unless you have a full flex ticket or elite status on the connecting train. And the problem with the Eurostar is that you cannot just walk up to the train and ask the manager if you can jump on. You'd have to wait in a line at the ticket office. Possibly a very long time consuming line.