Dormans to Mareuil sur Ay (Or, ‘Is there such a thing as too much champagne?)

Sampling the delights of Philippe Benard Champagne

Firstly, congratulations to all who spotted the spelling mistake in the last entry, Dormant should be Dormans.  It was actually a secret plan to thwart Fran Jam, one of our stalkers, but unfortunately it was him who pointed it out……  Secondly, yes, too much time spent drinking recently and not enough blogging so I’m a bit behind but loads to talk about so will catch up with a few smaller entries rather than one large ‘War and Peace’ type effort.  So we were at Dormans….

We woke to rain on Tuesday 8^th, which along with slightly woolly heads, didn’t encourage an early start for our 14km and 1lock cruise to Reuil and we arrived early afternoon.

There was an excellent track for some Ninebotting practice, so we headed off down the path in search of a stuffed toy garden that had been mentioned.  It’s no longer there, so we headed back into the town and had a look around.  Asides from champagne there isn’t much to the little champagne villages but there is clearly money and the villages are really tidy and very well kept.

Lock amongst the vines

Happy Cheeser enjoying the views

Well kept gardens at the port in Reuil

Showers were to be the theme of the week with them coming and going and us dodging in and out of them, which was slightly disappointing given it’s summer in France and in the south it was up to 40 degrees!  A quick hop to the next village of Damery, 7km and 1 lock where the pontoon mooring had free power and water which we took advantage of as our short cruise hadn’t given the batteries time to charge up and the overcast weather was rendering our solar panels less useful than usual.  After lunch we headed into the town for a look and visited the champagne house of Louis Caster.  Their front of house is like a trendy bar where they offer tastings to clients both corporate and people like us in off the street, and we were given 5 different champagnes to taste.  It was very nice, but we couldn’t really tell the difference between them to be honest, and decided that we’d need to taste a lot more before we could start to differentiate.  We did note that this was a dry one with 6gm of sugar per litre, which is the lowest grammage before it becomes an extra-dry (extra brut).  We learned that Extra-Brut is 0-6gm of sugar per litre, Brut is 6-12, Demi-sec is 12-20, I think, but my memory gets a bit hazy here.  So far, we prefer something around 9gms.

 

Our one lock of the day - our favourite 'V' shaped..... :(

Very nice tasting bar at Louis Casters, but even all this champagne is not enough to distract Mr Queenan from his bloody iPhone...

We were joined by Paul and Elaine on Luv at Damery and it was a lovely evening.

In France when a house has shutters, they have little metal arms to hold them open when the day cools down.  This was the first time we'd seen these shutter holders modelled as little people.

Thursday 10^th was quite cool and had Mike hinting at putting the fire on, but it wasn’t that cold at all!  After 3.5km and 1 lock we were heading to the pontoon at Cumieres and looking through the binoculars I could see a large boat moored up already.  As we got closer I suggested it was WB Lazybones with Jane and Bill on board, which Mike poo-pooed – turns out I was right!  We last saw them in June at St Jean des Losne when we headed off up the Bourgogne and they went east on to the Rhine, and now travelling clockwise back to Roanne we passed them going anti-clockwise to the same winter destination.  It’s always nice to meet up with people especially when you’ve not seen them for a while, so we had a good chat.  After getting our bearings we headed off up the hill on the bikes to the town of Hautevilliers where we had a nice lunch (apart from being pestered by wasps!) and then visited the little church there where Dom Perignon is laid to rest.  Feeling thirsty after our cycle and wander round the town, we headed for Champagne George Thibault where they have amazing views across the valley to enjoy while you sample their wares.  Here you pay for a tasting but then get the money back if you buy six bottles, so we sampled three each, and she threw in the final one for free.  This time we sampled the demi-sec and it was definitely too sweet for us at 13gms of sugar per litre, but we purchased six bottles; 2 of Reserve Brut which is a blend of grapes, 2 Blanc de Blanc which is 100% chardonnay and 2 Blanc de Noir which is 100% pinot noir grape – do we sound like we’re starting to know our champagne stuff??

 

There were great views on the climbe up to Hautevilliers, this one looking out over to Epernay

All the vines are labelled ;)

Still a bit of ripening to go on this pinot noire - or is it the pinot Meuniers....

Roses are planted at the end of the vines to give advance warnings of any pesky bugs, as they'll go for the rose first.

Many of the houses in Hautevilliers have these little 'signs' above the door, showing what the house is or was.  This was a champagne maker.

Carpenter

Butcher!

The very pretty Mairie at Hautevillier

Dom Perignon lies here

The benefits of an oversized beak!

If we drink enough we might start being able to taste the difference :)

Looking back down to Cumieres you can just make out the boats in the bit of water in the centre.

In the evening Jane and Bill came round for a drink and we caught up on where they’d been, plans for next season and their fun and games in a lock when their bow caught on a gate – terrifying!

We decided to do a second night at Cumieres so accepted Bill’s offer of a lift to the supermarket to stock up.  We then washed the boat and felt bad when we saw bits of rust appearing here and there under the flaking bits of paint and decided to make a start on the season’s ‘touching up’.  This also involved t-cutting the whole roof which was followed by waxing – Karate Kid doesn’t have a look in……….  To reward our hard work, we then took the Ninebot out on the most excellent towpath and I put my running gear on so I could get a bit of exercise whilst Mike tried to stop looking like Ian Curtis dancing as he wheeled along.  Returning to the boat 40 minutes later or so, Bill’s curiosity was piqued and it didn’t take much to persuade him to have a try.  It was a very short try as it proved harder than Bill thought it would be and we only just got back indoors when the sky darkened and the rain came on – inevitable when you’ve just washed the boat I guess.  In the evening we went to Bill and Jane for drinks where unfortunately Mike a)drank too much and b)discovered Jane’s accordion – or squeeze box as it really was, but that sounded a bit rude to write ‘Mike discovered Jane’s Squeezebox’………  I nearly bought him one for his Christmas a few years ago, but when I went back to the Bethany shop to get it, it was gone.  I think I had a really luck escape.  It was awful and he was really annoying, deciding that instead of speaking, he would sing everything whilst squeezing the box in and out.  I hope you never have to experience this for real.

On Saturday morning, Lazybones was off sharp as they were out of water so wanted to get to Damery to fill up and we left shortly afterwards to Epernay where we cruised down to the end of the navigable River Marne, turned around and moored up near the supermarket on the edge of the town.  We did some shopping, got some fuel and then headed into the town, the Champagne Capital.  Despite its claim, it’s a rather uninspiring town, until you go onto the Avenue du Champagne, where the big champagne houses line a stunning avenue; Moet et Chandon, Pol Roger, Vieuve Cliquot to name a few.  After taking the little tourist train to get a bit of the history, we were too late for any of the tours which all seemed to stop at 4pm, so we returned to the boat and decided to get up early to do the Mercier tour before we headed off on Sunday.  It’s a really interesting tour as they have 18km of caves so you are taken around on a train.  We then tasted a their Brut and Rose champagnes, and bought a bottle of the Brut which was rather nice before walking back to the boat and making our way to the first lock of the day which would take us off the river Marne and onto the Canal Lateral a la Marne.

Its the end of the Marne (....as we know it...)

A great way to get an overview of Epernay, the Champagne Capital

The Mairie at Epernay has beautiful gardens open to the public.

Avenue du Champagne - Epernay

Posing with Dom outside Moet

Avenue du Champagne

Pretty champagne-themed roundabout welcomes those arriving by road

These large friezes are fairly common to brighten the workers' day being underground for most of it and latterly for the tourists.

The train at Mercier Champagen taking us through the caves

The huge Mercier barrell was taken to the Paris Expo late 1800s

Moet's pretty orangerie

Our cruise was only 7kms and 2 locks to the town of Ay which was like a ghost town.  For one it was Sunday and two, August is when France takes its holiday.  Yes, the whole country, it appears, shuts down; shops, beauticians, electricians, boat mechanics – if you’re going to break down, don’t do it in August as you’ll have to wait to September to get it sorted!  Also, in the champagne region, a lot of the houses take their holidays prior to the onslaught of harvest time late August, early September.  So it was like walking through a ghost town as we made our way to the back of the town and the Cite de Champagne, where we were taken on a fantastic tour by the lovely Margaret, who hails originally from Scotland!  They have a wonderful museum there and as the sun was shining, we were able to walk right into the vines for a closer look.  Their champagne was nice, but at 25 euros was more expensive than we’d been buying (our range so far was 14-19 euros) so we didn’t buy any, but I got a couple of postcards and a little champagne magnet.  Our little rural mooring there was lovely, so peaceful and with the sun making a return, we reluctantly roasted our pork (having the heritage stove heat the boat up on a hot summer’s evening is not a great idea) for tea and then sat out on the back deck enjoying the calm until the sun went down and it cooled down.

The museum housed old machinery and champagne-making gadgets as well as historical advertising.

The brick structures to the right of the picture are chimneys from the caves below.

We were on a roll with the weather and sunshine and blue-skies greeted us on Monday 14^th as we got ready to cruise the 3km and 0 locks to Mareuil sur Ay, pulling up on the quayside that was lined with campervans and motorhomes.  As we tied up, a scooter pulled up next to us, and it was Nicky from Puddleduck, one of the other Roanne boats we’d met earlier in the year.  They were a couple of hours away on the boat but she’d come along to see if there was space and as there was, they’d join us later.  Despite the amount of people around in boats and campervans, the town still felt very quiet, all the shops were shut and later on when we tried to visit a champagne house discovered it was shut and only then did we realise it was a bank holiday.  Our tasting thwarted, we went back to the boats and we took a bottle of fizz onto Puddleduck to enjoy whilst catching up with Nicky and Garrette.  As we finished off our second bottle a lady pulled up on her bike and asked if we’d done any tasting locally.  We explained we’d tried to but they were closed, but she had a plan!!  She and her husband were Belgian and in one of the motorhomes and come here every year to stock up on Philipe Benard Champagne.  They’ve got to know the family over the years and now will ask if anyone else at the port wants champagne, put in a large order and then Monsieur Benard brings it down to the port in his van.  He hadn’t done the delivery yet, so we went to the house with the Belgian man, who’d clearly been tasting all afternoon, and tasted Monsieur et Madame Benard’s champagne.  It was really nice and at 14 and 16 euros a bottle, having drunk the best part of two bottles between us with them, we felt it only right to purchase, so we bought two rose and two brut, as did Nicky and Garrette, then walked a squiggly line back to the port where shortly after, Monsieur Benard arrived in the van and started dispensing the orders.  I suspect the Belgian’s get a good discount for the business they drum up, but it’s deserved, it really was good champagne, and lovely to buy straight from the house from the man whose great, great grandfather had started the business – very nice.

It all started off quite civilised...

Monsieur et Madame Benard were charming hosts

And then it all went a bit wonky.........

Needless to say, after all these bubbles things were on track for getting messy, so we called it a day and headed to the restaurant for dinner where we had a glass of red wine each with our meal after which Mike was struggling to speak, so I took him home and put him to bed.

The thing I have come to notice is that after several heavy nights involving champagne, I never have a hangover after drinking lots of bubbly….not sure if this is good or not!!