May 29, 2016 - War and Peace

Hello, everybody, Bonjour a tous!  Welcome back to Cépage et Cuisine, Mary’s and Brian’s blog about wine, food, and culture.  May 29 was a Sunday, a day when small producers are closed.  We spent it in Reims, visiting historical cultural sites, and touring the caves of Champagne Taittinger, a large producer that is headquartered there.

Reims (pronounced Rauntz with a gargled French R sound; don't ask) is steeped in ancient and modern history.  Our first destination was the Cathedral Notre-Dame de Reims, perhaps one of the most famous sites in France.  First, the Cathedral is the church in which coronation and blessing of French royalty occurred, literally the church of kings.

Second, it has a longevity that is all the more remarkable, considering what it has endured.  It was built in the 13^th century, making it almost 700 years old, and replaced an even older church on the same site that was destroyed by fire.  That means that, in addition to the wars of the 20^th century, it has seen numerous earlier conflicts.

It is a magnificent structure, inside and out.  This short video was made as we approached at 11:00 on a Sunday morning.  Sorry about the shaky image, but I recorded as we walked and it was raining.

This second video (below) and the photo that follows were recorded before I realized photography is not allowed during mass.

Here are some exterior photos of the exquisite statuary and sculpture.

The cathedral was terribly damaged during World War I.  Here you can see the scars of shell fire on this wall.

Some of the sculpture was damaged although I imagine that time and the exposure to the elements also contributed.  Restoration is an ongoing process 100 years later.

After a quick lunch we went to Taittinger but had to wait an hour for an English language tour.

The guide suggested we walk down the street about three blocks to visit the Basilica Saint Remi.  I’m so glad we did.

This church is almost as old and majestic as the cathedral.  It doesn’t have the history of coronations, but it was designated as a basilica by the pope, indicating special significance in the Catholic faith.  Mary and I aren’t exactly sure about the difference between a cathedral and a basilica.  Mary thinks it might be that one is the home church of the archbishop.  Perhaps one of you alert readers can shed some light on the question.

For part of our visit, we had the entire basilica to ourselves.  Here’s a view from the rear.

And Mary in a moment of quiet reflection

Like the church in Chouarce, there are many precious sculptures that are centuries old.

Like the Cathedral Notre-Dame de Reims, the Basilica Saint Remi was heavily damaged in the 1914 assault on the city.  This photo on display gives an indication.

This sign tells a little of the story and as best I could translate it online, I think it says: “During the war of 1914 Saint Remi received many shells.  The vaults of the axial chapel were slaughtered.  The 9 high windows in the center of the apse disappeared.  On August 1, 1918, during a terrible bombardment, the nave, covered with a vault of wood and plaster, was set fully ablaze.  There is nothing left of the roof and the nave remains an open pit.”

Then we walked back to Champagne Taittinger for our tour.  It was a large group, perhaps 30, all English speaking.  We descended by a spiral staircase into the caves and cellars 18 meters below the surface.  Taittinger is on the site of a former abbey, the ruins and reminders of which are easily seen during the tour.

The caves are an interesting story in themselves.  There are 17 kilometers of them under the city, 10.5 miles!  The tunnels allowed the monks to move around from church to church.  During the fighting in 1914 and much of the occupation, thousands of civilians took shelter in the chalk tunnels, living there for months or even years. It was like a city beneath a city, including merchants, butchers, and bakers. During the second world war, the caves were used to hide the most precious wines.

Here you see some wall graffiti from that terrible time.  Guerre is translated to war.

These galleries are throughout the tunnels and hold precisely 99,950 bottles of Champagne and take two men two weeks to fill by hand.

These bottles are in racks for a process called riddling.  Riddling allows sediment in the bottle to gradually move to the neck of the bottle for disgorgement.

Here’s a quick video below from YouTube that demonstrates how riddling is done.  Each bottle is turned one-eighth at a time about two or three times per week.

This is a stairway tunnel, several hundred years old, used by the monks to come from the surface and retrieve bottles of wine.

This is a chalk pit that shows how the Romans mined chalk from the earth to use to build the cathedrals and other buildings in France.  It is hard to convey the massive dimensions of the space but they were quite expert engineers.  The space is narrow at the top and enormous at the bottom in a pyramid design in order to keep it stable and prevent cave ins.

After the tour, we climbed back upstairs and had a nice tasting of four wines, although a little crowded for my preference.

We began with their basic Brut and finished with their premium wine, called Comtes de Champagne, all beautiful.

Back at the gite, we cooked in for dinner.  It was just a simple dinner but we paired it with this bottle from our host, Mathilde Weber, who gifted it to us upon our arrival.  They produce Champagne Alfred Tritant, which I’ll describe in more detail in a couple of days.  The gite is a converted attic space in their house.  The wine was delicious and refreshing with great acidity, lemon citrus, and fine effervescence.  It was a nice end to a fascinating day, despite all the rain.

That’s our post for today.  We hope you found it interesting.  Every time we visit these ancient and precious sites, we come away humbled and amazed.  The Cathedral Notre-Dame de Reims, the Basilica Saint Remi, and the chalk tunnels under the city are all UNESCO World Heritage sites.

Thanks for reading us at Cépage et Cuisine.  Please comment and let us know what you think.  We have one more day in Champagne before we transition to our next stop in Germany.  In the meantime,

Cheers,

Mary♥Brian