Champagne, Day 2



Day 2 started a bit later due to some overagressive sampling the night before. But we made our appointment at Andre Clouet, a small producer in Bouzy. The guy gave us a great tour, capped with a rather bizarre ending. First, one of the other employees took a sheet of plywood off of the bucket it was covering to reveal a live hedgehog. Then he dumped the hedgehog on the lawn (see the photo). This led to two questions:
1. Why did they have a hedgehog in a bucket?
2. How did it get there?

Our guide quickly moved on (after disparaging hedgehogs as "full of all kinds of shit") and showed us their caves and storeroom -- but refused to sell us any! He did give us a bottle, which was very nice, but he wouldn't sell us any more. Oh well.

Next we went to Moët & Chandon, and the one thing they will definitely do is sell. Their 12+ miles of cellars are filled with various vintages of both Moët and Dom Perignon. It's impressive that Moët can be blended so that it tastes the same every year, but I have to admit that I'm not a fan. It was by far my least favorite of what we tried, which is probably for the best -- it was also the most expensive by far.