Western Europe - Day 9

Reims (FRANCE) It was drizzling and a tad chilly in the morning. The city was quiet and reticent. Reims is the unofficial capital of the Champagne wine-growing region. Many of the Champagne Houses headquartered here offer wine-tasting and cellar tours.

Notre-Dame de Reims (Cathedrale Notre-Dame)

Champagne is a province in the northeast of the Kingdom of France, now best known as the Champagne Wine Region for the sparkling white wine that bears its name in modern-day France.

We were here to see the Reims Cathedral and later, GH Mumm for the underground cellar tour and wine tasting session.

This grand cathedral is known for its stained-glass windows and Gothic carved portals, including the Smiling Angel.

For more than 1,000 years, French kings were crowned at its Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Reims.

Notre-Dame de Reims, known in English as Reims Cathedral, is a Roman Catholic cathedral in the French city of the same name. The cathedral was dedicated to the Virgin Mary and is famous for being the traditional location for the coronation of the kings of France.

Upon a pedestal at one corner on the church ground, was a statue of Joan of Arc riding astride a horse. I was not able to get a picture as the rain was intensifying at this point. I remembered vaguely The Siege of Compiègne and wondered if all that history happened in this quiet part of Reims.

The House of GH Mumm G. H. Mumm & Cie, situated in Reims in northern France, is one of the largest Champagne producers. It is currently ranked 4th globally. We were here for the cellar tour and champagne tasting session.

We descended several flight of stairs into the dark gloom of the cold and menacing underground cellar.  Dionysus (aka Bacchus) greeted us at the top of one of these flights.

Dionysus was  the son of Zeus and Semele.  Zeus was the king of the gods at Mount Olympus while Semele was a daughter of Cadmus,  King of Thebes.  Dionysus was the God of Wine and the Grape Harvest in ancient Greek religion and myth.  His Roman name was Bacchus.  He was associated with wine, vegetation, pleasure, madness and wild frenzies.

This is where the grapes were once left to ferment in the old days. The guide told us how cleaners used to occasionally enter through these little holes to wash the interior. Bending low to peer into the interior, a bout of breathlessness and palpitation hit me head-on.

Interior

Volume labels

The going gets dark with sporadic spotlights illuminating the passageways.

Suddenly we came upon a gated intersection. Locked behind the bars on our left was a dark passage. Well placed spotlights hit the central object. Three vintage GH Mumm stood upon a barrel. (Picture: right)

It was a creepy experience nonetheless. I had  half-expected to see a sarcophagus.

I was glad when we finally stepped into an elevator which marked the end of the cellar tour.  We were taken several floors up to the wine tasting room. I did not count but remembered the guide mention that the cellars were something like seven floors below the ground.

On how a bottle should be uncorked.

Next was lunch at the L-Shaped La Vallee Village. We ordered fried rice and sweet & sour prawn from a Thai restaurant. The ladies in our group were in their element. After a hurried lunch, most were seen popping dizzily in and out the leading designer boutiques  at the village with vibrant eyes and predatory appetites. It was drizzling and not sharing their enthusiasm for shopping, we spent the hours mulling over croissants and lattes at the cafe.

With bags of branded product clutched in both hands, we were ushered into the waiting coach for the 1½ hours drive to Paris, where a Chinese dinner waited.

Ms Yvonne took this opportune moment to remind us of the danger of Paris.

"Remember what I told you a few days ago," she said. "They are now threatening with pocket knives  and snatching luggage and money from unsuspecting tourists."

We reached Paris without any incident. All of us were alert, our eyes starring daggers at any dodgy characters within our collective perimeter.

Mr Edward's incident was still fresh in our mind.