So last month, the exchange cadets (US, Canadian, Italian, and Japanese), myself and some French officers spent a couple weeks touring Air Force bases. It was an amazing opportunity for all of us. Every day we visited a different base (or two) and had the opportunity to learn and see a ton.
As part of the tour, we also had the occasion to see some cultural sites. In fact, all my posts will focus on that. While I found both aspects completely fascinating, I expect you would prefer to see the cultural experiences. So, I will start out with our stop in Reims (pronounced, Rance … rhymes with France, with a rolled R), which you may recall from earlier posts. However, this visit was unique and the only downside was that Anna and Alexander couldn’t be there to enjoy it with me.
We began our visit with a guided tour of the Pommery Champagne House.
This is a serious barrel!
Down into the chalk caves…
Madame Veuve (Vve) Louise Pommery was in good company. Seems that she was the first in a long line of widows in Champagne who turned to the sparkling wine after their spouses passed away. Mme Vve Pommery was the first. She bought a lot of underground chalk caves that hold seemingly endless bottles.
This is our guide (in the suit), explaining the company. Each main room had a piece of art. This particular room was clay statues.
A few bottles.
A few more. In fact, there are around 22 million bottles in the caves. Yes, 22 million.
Dustin on his way out.
I enjoyed this sculpture carved into the cave wall. This is Silene… He was the godfather or mentor of Dionysus, who happens to be one of my favorite characters from Greek mythology. Fittingly, he is sitting over a large number of Champagne bottles.
Nancy, checking out the video art in another chamber.
Ready for a quick dégustation.
As you can see, these bottles survived both world wars (Reims was heavily affected by WWI). I’m not sure if I would want to drink it, but it’s there.
These look like they’ve been untouched for a long time.
A few more vintages with the number of bottles for each year listed underneath.
Scott hanging out by the indoor rain (which was another art exhibit).
Raining, inside.
The shiny disco ball… This one was in preparation for the 2002 vintage release which was happening later in the evening.
Of course, at the end of any winery (or Champagne house) tour, there is the obligatory tasting. It was quite delicious.
The girls enjoying a glass of Pommery.
Here are more of those shiny disco balls.
After Pommery, we headed into the downtown for a tour of the famous church. Since I’ve already described it in an earlier post, I won’t belabor the point, but suffice it to say, the church is still just as impressive.
An image of the church with some of the cadets walking toward me.
Just after this image, we were fortunate and came across a great little wine store. Inside, they were having a Champagne tasting. Not only was it a free tasting, the owner and head vintner were there to talk to the 15 of us who showed up for the tasting. Even though it didn’t seem like a very big crowd, they brought out the good Champagne. As you might imagine, it was very tasty.
Well, that does it for Reims. Next up is a short post on our weekend in Paris.
Until then…
–Jim