champagne wine tours

I can't help you with the Champagne Loop. We loved Reims in 2019, but didn't drink any Champagne. But way back in 2015, we had a great day in Alsace with Ophorus.

https://www.ophorus.com/region/4/france/alsace

We stayed in Ay and took wine tours in Epernay including the historic Moet e Chandon . The charge was for a glass of champagne at the end of the tour.

We did the champagne loop. It was lovely. We did not find any wineries that did not charge. We also needed to have advance reservations for all of the Champagne wineries. I would compare the 2024 edition to a previous edition. We found that the wineries in the guide had changed quite a bit from Rick Steves's description. None were the small, quaint family owned. We did very much enjoy the small town of Hautvillers where Dom Perignon is interred. You can visit the tiny church with his tomb. We did enjoy our visit to Champagne G.Tribaut à Hautvillers. They have an exceptional view and while large, the staff was friendly and we enjoyed our tasting.

While in the town of Reims where we did a walking tour with a map given to us by the TI, we visited a wine tasting shop where we tasted really exceptional and expensive champagnes at a very reasonable price. Staff constructed a small tasting for us with wines from small, local wineries. Trésors de Champagne was the name of the shop.

There have been recent posts within the last 2-4 months on this subject.

Regarding Alsace--We loved Alsace and the wine road was absolutely lovely. We did stop at some wineries for tasting. We were there at least 7 years ago. I imagine most places now want tasting appointments and probably charge for them.

Incidentally, we did encounter several wineries in Bordeaux that did not charge for tasting.