Into the Moët and Chandon cellars

Today dawned like yesterday - misty and overcast, with the likelihood of rain. What to do on such a day? Let's go underground - the weather won't matter. So we booked a tour with the Moët mob in Epernay, easily found the nearby car park, and were soon waiting in a very elegant room for our guide. She turned out to be Japanese (of course) and we had a bit of trouble with her pronunciation of English inititially. We had been told to wear warm clothing so the cool temperature underground ( about 10C ) was not a problem. After a promotional film about the company we descended into a labyrinth of tunnels. Don had vague recollections of touring the Great Western cellars many years ago. The company have about 28 kms of the tunnels and our guide had been lost 3 times! She explained the whole process, from the picking (always by hand) of the 3 varieties of grapes in the the adjacent vineyards through the stages of blending and maturation to the final bottling. Their champagnes take longer to produce than other companies, which would explain why they are the most expensive. Their Imperial range take about 3 years and their vintage ones (those with the year on the label) 7 years. It was all very interesting and finished with us getting a flute of their Imperial type (or if you had paid extra, a vintage drop) Valerie voted it the best she had tasted. Despite that we resisted buying any in their Boutique. We don't know how many million bottles they hold in their cellars,which are the largest, but our Lonely Planet book says there are about 200 million in all of the districts 110kms of cellars. After all this it was time for another of our main meals of the day - lunch. We found a nearby Brasserie ( a bar which serves full meals, usually a bit faster than the restaurants) Again we ate well! With map in hand we thought we would walk to the Cathedral ( or was it a Church?) those spire we could see. We found it, much closer than expected, then opted to walk on to another church and the adjacent Synagogue. After we found ourselves back almost to where we started Don had to admit that he was losing/had lost his excellent sense of direction. Not being able to see the sun doesn't help of course. One of the features of our cottage is that we are able to phone to anywhere we like - I think it comes as a package with the Internet TV etc. So this morning Don phoned his Doctor in Adelaide and Valerie phoned a friend and also tried to call her daughter in Victoria, who is on a school camp with her pupils. Tomorrow we hope to go to Reims and the following day, when the weather should be improved, to Verdun.