Champagne Vilmart cellars

Champagne Bottles Taittinger Cellar

Champagne bottle sediment demonstration

Autumn Champagne

27 - 29 October 2012

As on all our Original Champagne Weekends, our aim is to taste a wide spectrum of Champagnes, to visit a good cross section of Houses, from those that forged Champagne’s reputation such as Taittinger, Pol Roger and Veuve Clicquot as well as to search out quality growers and rising stars in the villages.

Champagne is fun to drink and a fascinating wine to see being made and being easy to get to makes for a great weekend. Our base for the weekend is a comfortable 3* hotel in the centre of the lively attractive city of Reims. Reims is just 280kms of easy motorway from Calais so the journey passes quickly – especially as someone else is doing the driving! Along they way our Tour Manager will serve complimenary tea, coffee and biscuits and you can sit back, read your book or watch the scenery.

Over the course of the weekend you will taste at least 25 champagnes, starting at breakfast. You will receive a special welcome and generous tastings at houses that we have been visiting for many years.

Your Comparative Tastings

We want to show you as broad a spectrum of Champagnes over the weekend as possible. So, as always on Arblaster & Clarke Champagne weekends, your Wine Guide will show you a selection of Champagnes in order to introduce the various styles and different Houses or Growers in two tastings, one each evening. No two of our tastings are alike and no two Wine Guides have the same approach to presenting them. We like to choose some unusual Champagnes for you to taste not just the famous names. Most will be to your liking though perhaps some may not. You can normally learn more from these than those you liked, but hopefully you’ll find one or two that you think are fabulous!

Evening Meals

Reims has a wealth of wonderful restaurants, brasseries and bistros from two Michelin star restaurants (early booking essential!) to more reasonably priced gourmet restaurants and traditional style brasseries. We provide a list of all our tried and tested ones before the trip with phone numbers, so you can book ahead if you wish. However, we will make a reservation at two of our favourite (reasonably priced) brasseries and you are very welcome to join our Wine Guide or Tour Manager for dinner where they will select some interesting wines.

This again is one of the great advantages of an Arblaster & Clarke fully escorted tour. We give you the flexibility to dine alone if this is what your prefer, or the fun of being part of a lively party who generally all get on together really well, especially after the champagne tasting has broken the ice! This is especially appreciated by those clients who travel alone with us.

Champagne Breakfasts

Breakfast is served each morning at the hotel. The A&C Tour Manager is on hand to exclusively serve our clients with a glass of champagne to go with their buffet breakfast – mornings will never seem the same again!

Champagne Taittinger

We visit the beautiful cellars of Champagne Taittinger, which weave for kilometres under the city of Reims. They were carved out of the chalk by the Romans and now house the prestige Cuvée of Taittinger, ‘Comtes de Champagne’. This is the perfect introduction to Champagne; we see how it is made and then taste a couple of champagnes in their elegant tasting room.

Free Time in Reims

Lunchtime is free in Reims. You will have time to explore Reims and choose a cafe table to sit at and people watch while you enjoy some local food and a glass of champagne, perhaps!

Champagne Brice

Champagne Brice, used to feature on our very first Champagne weekends and we were delighted to welcome them back to the programme in 2007, our 20th year. Champagne Brice are based in Bouzy but also have vineyards in Cramant and Verzenay. The Brices have taken the decision to produce a range of non-vintage mono-cru champagnes that age well.

Champagne Billecart-Salmon

The Billecart family has lived in Mareuil-sur-Ay since the 16th century. A small, family-owned house that always produces high-quality Champagnes of great finesse. Billecart-Salmon is particularly renowned for the delicate style of its rosé. The essence of their style has always been its meticulous production, from the double “débourbage” to its long, slow, very cool fermentation. We have watched them rise to super-star status since we first started visiting them in the late 1980s.

Lunch at Champagne Vilmart

One of the most interesting and stylish growers that we visit is Champagne Vilmart, in Rilly-La-Montagne. Established in the 1890s Vilmart is still a family-run house, owned by the aptly named Champs family. They are one of the few remaining traditional producers who both ferment the wines and mature the champagnes in oak barrels and tonneaux. Vilmart also prides itself on being an organic producer, using no herbicides or chemicals on their vineyards. The Vilmart champagnes are full of richness, finesse and complexity. The family themselves are extremely talented and artistic and Monsieur Champs specialises in beautiful stained glass, which decorates the dining room where we will have our buffet lunch. Lunch will be accompanied by a selection of House champagnes. This is not a restaurant but a private invitation to lunch as guests of Champagne Vilmart.

After the visit we continue our journey directly back to Calais on on to Dover and London arriving late evening.