Any vintners not to be missed in Champagne? We are flexible in our timetable and do not want to miss a winery of a lifetime visit. Are there any guides or docents that you would recommend?
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Fontainebleau, France
893 posts
I highly recommend the Avenue de Champagne in Epernay because it is pretty and an easy way to do tastings at multiple champagne houses. If you speak French, Sanger's tour is the most unique/interesting I have done. It's actually a vo-tech high school for champagne making and the senior students give the tours. It's only open limited hours, it's off-the-beaten-path and you'll likely get a personal tour. You get better/closer access to the process than you'd ever get at one of the larger places. They learn to make champagne in many different ways, and afterwards you get a free guided tasting. It's the only place I know where you can taste champagne made the traditional way (with oak barrels). Yuck! But I'm glad I tried it. Their champagne is inexpensive and only so-so, but the tour and tasting are free, so we thought buying a bottle was well worth it. I don't know if they give tours in English, but you could contact them and ask.