{"id":2967,"date":"2025-04-30T16:07:54","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T16:07:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=2967"},"modified":"2025-04-30T16:27:03","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T16:27:03","slug":"reims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=2967","title":{"rendered":"Reims"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Power Tasting<\/em> has alluded to the French city of Reims in a number of previous issues, but we have never highlighted it as a Place to Visit.  Perhaps the first thing we ought to say about Reims is how to pronounce it.  Not easy for American mouths, it certainly is not Raymes<\/em> or Reems<\/em> as the spelling might indicate.  You need to start with that French \u201cr\u201d, which sort of comes from saying the sound of the letter at the same time you are clearing your throat.  The vowels don\u2019t follow the usual American path either; they\u2019re more like aah<\/em>, as in \u201caah, phooey\u201d.  The \u201cm\u201d disappears altogether and is pronounced sort of like \u201cn\u201d as spoken through your nose.  At least the \u201cs\u201d survives intact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe more Americans would go to Reims if they called it Smith<\/em>, which the French have a hard time pronouncing correctly.  Americans, at least those who love Champagne wine and medieval splendor should<\/em> visit Reims, because the city has a lot of both.  If you just want a day trip from Paris for wine tasting and sightseeing, Reims is perfect.  And if you\u2019re looking for a base for touring the Champagne region for several days, Champagne is perfect for that, too.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Charles de Cazanove winery is five minutes\u2019 walk from the Reims train station. Photo courtesy of the Union de Maisons de Champagne.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reims is one of the two major centers of Champagne production, the other being \u00c9pernay.  The best known grands maisons<\/em> in Reims are Mumm, Veuve Clicquot<\/a>, Pommery<\/a> and Taittinger<\/a>.  There are many other lesser known houses in Reims, including Lanson, G. H. Martel and Cazanove.  Getting to Reims from Paris is easy.  There\u2019s a TGV train from the Gare de l\u2019Est that will get you there in under an hour.  (TGV means train \u00e0 grande vitesse<\/em>, or very fast train.)  Getting around once you\u2019re there is more difficult.  There are taxis at the train station or on-call and Uber works just like at home.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The \u201cSmiling Angel\u201d at the Cathedral of Reims.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides tasting the local sparkling wines, the Reims Cathedral is not to be missed.  It was for more than twelve centuries the place where the kings of France were crowned, including Charles VII.  He only got there because Joan of Arc captured the city from the English.  The cathedral that now stands in Reims was built in the 13th<\/sup> and 14th<\/sup> centuries.  The entire structure is a model of Gothic glory.  Among the best loved sights are the \u201cSmiling Angel\u201d in one of the entrance arches, the extraordinary rose window and the Chagall windows in the Lady Chapel.  The rose window had to be taken down \u2013 very carefully \u2013 and stored to preserve it during the First and Second World Wars.  Other windows weren\u2019t so lucky.  That\u2019s why they recruited Marc Chagall to replace the ones destroyed in the second war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can drive from Reims to \u00c9pernay in under an hour, but don\u2019t.\u00a0 Drive slowly and admire the gorgeous countryside.\u00a0 Take small side roads, even get a bit lost, and visit some of the hundreds of Champagne houses between the two cities<\/a>.\u00a0 They don\u2019t get the volume of visitors that the big houses do, so they greet you just a bit more enthusiastically.\u00a0 And tell yourself how lucky you are to be in Champagne.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Power Tasting has alluded to the French city of Reims in a number of previous issues, but we have never highlighted it as a Place to Visit.  Perhaps the first thing we ought to say about Reims is how to pronounce it.  Not easy for American mouths, it certainly is not Raymes or Reems as … Continue reading Reims<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2967"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2967"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2979,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2967\/revisions\/2979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}