Champagne party

Thursday was a public holiday in France, which often means people will take the Friday off as well (a bridge day). Some of our local Champagne houses took advantage of this and opened their doors for a ‘Champagne party’.

There were 14 houses who had joined in, all within a 30 minute radius of each other. We’d chosen three we wanted to go and try, and headed out to the furthest one away in Arcancon — a pretty little village about 25 minutes drive from us. We were heading to see ‘Farfelan’, a small family run business. For 10€ we could try 3 glasses of their Champagnes, from the six or so they had on offer. They also had a pizza oven fired up, so we ordered a pizza to enjoy with our Champagne tasting. All very pleasant and rather delicious.

Our next stop-off was in another pretty little village called Spoy, just five minutes down the road. I’d read previously about Spoy, and had noticed the producer Jacky Tapprest from some local reviews, so this was a great opportunity to try his Champagnes.

Each of the producers we had stopped at had organised stalls with local artisans, and food stops. After our glasses of Champagne we would wander around and see what they had to offer, which included jewellery, knitted ware, confitures and all kinds of wonderful handmade things. It was tiring work though, so we treated ourselves to a couple of ice-creams. On a boiling hot day they were very welcome.

Our last stop was in Urville, the home of one of the areas most famous producers, Drappier Champagne — once the preferred Champagne of Charles De Gaulle. We were heading to Daniel Billette, on the outskirts of the village. It was a very pleasant set-up, with music, comfy chairs and, of course, Champagne. We sat with our glasses enjoying a view of the vines. What’s not to enjoy!