Mon and Brett half way there: Mon ami

Today I got to meet mon ami. Isabelle and I have written to each other since we were 13 and that was a long time ago for some of us.

She meet us at the train station with gloves and scarves in case we needed them. Lucky we had our own. We arrived around 11am and there was frost still on the ground. It is a lot colder here then Paris.

Checked into Best Western and the bed looks great and the room is lovely. Off to Isabelle's place for lunch and then a trip to Reims for a tasting/tour of G.H. Mumm.

Isabella had put on a lovely spread and meet us with presents of chocolates and carry bags to carry all our stuff. Lunch was cheeses, breads, meats and a glass of wine. We got to meet Gaten her lovely boyfriend.

Anna you would have laughed so hard you would have cried. Gaten is from the north and you remember our faourite french film 'welcome to the sticks' well we have our very own star. Gaten he is from the north and he talks like them from the movie. The cheese you see at the top of the cheese plate is the same cheese they served in the movie. The one that stank so much.

This is Brett trying the stinky cheese.

After lunch Isabelle drove us to Reims to visit GH Mumm. Thanks to Greg S this is now one of my favourite champagnes.

The tour was great and you get to see where they store it all. There are thousands of bottles. When they made the champagne they would store it in barrels but it gave it a taste to it so they then changed to storing it in concrete containers. They eventually changed to steel vats. Here is the concrete vats, see the little hole, someone had to get in there and clean out the container. Looks like a child would fit through there so not a job for me or brett.

They store the wine here and then when they are ready they cut the top off and get rid of the sediment and then we refill it and get it ready to sell.

Once it has stayed flat for some time they then had to be moved to start changing the angle of which they are stored to get rid of sediment.

Many hall ways of champagne.

these photos are where they store the really really really old wines. They keep a store of these so they can keep going back to make sure they have the taste the same.