This was an extremely interesting tour. Our driver Trong Nguyen picked me up from my apartment…read morerental in Paris. He then handed out small bags of freshly made pastries and croissants to me and the other 4 people on the tour (along with hot coffee).
The drive out to Champagne took a little under two hours. Our first stop of the day was in just one of the many hundreds of vineyards. Trong educated us on the growing, tending and harvesting of the grape vines - it takes around 2 years of training before you are allowed to work in the field. We then drove to a local champagne maker where we learned how the champagne was made, bottled, labelled and shipped - this also came with a complimentary tasting of three different champagnes
I took a full day tour of Reims/Champagne on May 18, 2026. It was a really
We then drove into Reims where we sat down for a mandatory two hour lunch - the entire City shuts down during this lunch period. Following lunch, we explored the Reims Cathedral where many of the French kings were crowned. The Cathedral itself was destroyed three times by the Germans - The Franco-Prussian war, WWI and WWII but has now been completed restored with private funds only.
After visiting the Cathedral, we then drove to the Pommery Champagne House which features a champagne museum. We descended several hundred feet into the Caves (which run for miles underground). Pommery claims to store, 23,000,000 bottles of Champagne in its Cave. Following our visit to the Museum, we then have another champagne tasting before heading back to Paris arriving in Paris around 7:30 PM (just in time for dinner!).
This was a very enjoyable and interesting day. I now feel that I have doubled my knowledge of champagne and have another 98% to go.
Champagne is stunningly beautiful - vineyards stretching to the horizon. It is hard to imagine that this was on the frontlines of the trenches during WWI.
I would highly recommend this tour.
Sincerely,
Peter S. Matorin