I’ll teach you how to make champagne

My Gate 1 tour went out into the champagne region today to tour the Nicolas Feuillatte cellars in Chouilly, France.

I’ve toured a lot of wineries and feel like I get the general gist of winemaking.

In my ignorance, I thought this knowledge would put me way ahead in understanding champagne, but I’m wrong once again. We were escorted through the production line at the cellars by an employee with a heavy accent but I feel like I understood most of what she said and so you should be making your own champagne by the end of the weekend.

Our guide talked a lot about needing an ice cock…over and over…and I was too embarrassed to ask what it was, until she…in a moment of weakness, I guess…pronounced all the actual letters in the word and I can tell you that what you actually need is an ice cork.

The ice cork plays a key role in the disgorgement (this is the official champagne term, so settle down) of spent yeast sediment from the grapes that you’ve mushed up.

Next, you need a dead uncle and some glycol. I’m as confused as you are by the dead uncle, but the guide said it over and over again and I’m assuming, once you all gather your ice cork, your glycol, and your grapes, the role of the dead uncle will become clear.

The final thing our guide pointed out was this Tate Modern-ish massive picture displayed right in the production cellar, but I don’t have enough training to know which part of the champagne process this illustrates:

In addition to our champagne stop, we went to Reims, a city I visited a few years ago. On that visit, the Cathedral Notre-Dame de Reims (from 1211) happened to be closed and I missed out on some stellar stained glass. I was hoping to have a better visit this time.

Here’s the cathedral from the outside:

And then here’s their rose window, especially gorgeous with the glass below:

The cathedral also has some Marc Chagall stained glass, installed in the 1970s:

And some modern geometric glass from Imi Knoebel in 1971, taking the original glass colors and presenting them in abstract form:

Last time I was in Reims…in 2023…I was escorting Ron and my sister around on a day trip from Paris, and I recall that it was a Sunday – pretty rainy, the cathedral was closed, and we couldn’t find a single restaurant open and so I fed them from the grocery store and made them dine on a street curb.

Shortly thereafter, when they needed to use the bathroom, we worked super hard at trying to get into this bathroom (nearly two centuries of combined urination experience!) and never figured it out:

So today, having mostly mastered champagne and enjoyed the stained glass, with a 2 hour ride back to Paris, I decided to have a second go at toileting in Reims.

The bathroom on the main square was closed and so our Gate 1 guide said there is a bathroom in the library but that he had gotten kicked out and they don’t want tourists in there. He cautioned us that we should – if we were going in there – try to look French and so, being especially French-looking, I decided to try to “go” in the library:

In I went, right past the guard, and marched up to the periodicals at the front like someone who doesn’t need to pee. I leafed through a magazine about an upcoming Celine Dion visit to Paris and decided it was time…and as I wandered across the floor towards the bathroom, a deafening fire alarm went off and everyone was ordered out of the building.

We leave Paris tomorrow and head up to Normandy. I’ll leave you with the quintessential Paris picture – my view of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre:

11 thoughts on “I’ll teach you how to make champagne”

  2. I had a good chuckle at your photo inside Paris’ Louvre.

    I’ve made equivalent images surrounding Gustav Klimt’s “The Kiss” in Vienna’s Upper Belvedere. I can’t help but wonder if visitors notice (or care) for any of the details in the painting. On another upside, the rest of the collection in the Upper Belvedere is pretty good.

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  5. In 2022 it amazed me how easy it was to get to Reims from Paris where we started the RS Eastern France tour which i enjoyed. Valerie, how many are on your Gate One tour. We have taken 19 RS tours and my former Richmond VA friend thinks i am crazy to pay so much for RS Tours. She also travels a lot and watches for Gate One specials. I trust your opinion and value of the $ and interested in your comparison of the two tour companies after your GAS tour.

    Tell your relatives that it is better for the planet to go on month+ trips than four one week transatlantic flights.

    I find my RS rolling carry on and school backpack (Osprey or leftover kid ll Beach high school backpack) is all I need for five weeks.

    Valerie, 2022 we did the RS 14 Day Greece tour and had a fabulous guide, Apostolos Douras. Apostolos has his own tour company and we have taken his two other tours and can highly recommend them. Tour company is “Wonders of Epirus”. I will forward the link. Limited to twelve persons b/c size of bus. His other tour is Crete. Both are 12-13 days and best tours we have ever taken. There were single women on both.

    Take care of yourself. You are important. We did RS 13 day Turkey tour October 2025 and it runs a close 2nd behind Greece. We liked Turkey and it’s Byzantine Art so much we are returning to Istanbul for three nights the end of this month. Best Byzantine Art in the world.

    Sally Moxley 50 years in RIchmond but moved to Atherton CA this past summer

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    1. Hi Sally! Thanks for this nice and detailed reply:)

      This is my third Gate 1 tour – We did Israel/Jordan about 8 years ago and then did Japan. These were both small groups tours with them. This France one is small group as well, which can be up to 22 people with them. This tour has 13 on it… a nice small group.

      Gate 1 Classic tours can be up to 40 I think and they have some good deals for those but it’s a big group. I will say that the Rick Steves group size of 28 has gotten too big. It was better when it was 24.

      I will keep using both companies – and Road Scholar too. I choose by itinerary I guess. I have the RS Eastern France tour booked for next year!! It looks awesome.

      I will say that Gate 1 uses better hotels than Rick Steves and Road Scholar, which I appreciate.

      I looked at your Greece tour site – thank you! I love to know about those smaller companies – I check them all out. I’ve done Greece twice and plan to go again to get down to Crete at some point.

      I do appreciate the wonderful comments and emails I get from people – thank you.

      Three days in Istanbul – and then where are you headed?

      Valerie:)

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