This year’s Champagne Tour took place over an extended long weekend. We settled in at the Hotel de la Paix, which it transpired we were sharing with a number of the athletes and support staff from Team GB, who were stopping in Reims on their way to the Olympics. We decided to go for gold in our own way, starting with a superb dinner at Philippe Brugnon’s house in Rilly-la-Montagne. We had such a good time that we returned the next day for the village open weekend, where you can wander around merrily tasting wines produced by over two dozen vignerons. We visited a number of new Champagne houses over the next few days, always making sure we taught the families how to open their bottles properly.
We had a number of very memorable tastings, including a vintage tasting at Le Grand Café featuring, inter alia, a 2006 Dom Perignon and two vintages of Krug (1988 and 1989). And the trip culminated in a farewell dinner at a private house owned by the Taittinger family, where we enjoyed five of their Champagnes, including their Brut Rosé en magnum and the spectacular Comtes de Champagne 2013.
