Just a few weeks ago I finished yet another trip visiting Champagne’s wineries, ten days spent visiting Maisons and had a generally great time doing so. You will too, and I strongly encourage you to visit this beautiful wine region: after all, there’s something for everyone in Champagne, from very professional, even slick, touristy wine-Disneyland destinations that will leave vacationers happy but to whom the visitors are clearly nothing more than a number, to extremely kind, caring producers who no matter how big and important they are will always have time to take care of you properly: in no particular order except an alphabetical one, Billecart-Salmon, Bollinger, Louis Roederer, Philipponnat, Salon and Delamotte, and Taittinger, among others, come to mind. Some estates do not accept visitors, but many do, and so with a little planning ahead you can have a wonderful vacation visiting wineries while maybe fitting in time to see Reims (of the famous cathedral) and Epernay, and enjoying the excellent food at many local bistros, brasseries and restaurants.

In fact, producers in Champagne run the gamut from big to small, from artisanal to industrial, from fancy to down to earth. In Champagne, much like everywhere else, no single-type of entity does it all well. Just as there are huge outfits that are true class acts making spectacular wines, there are also large-volume outfits making very average quaff that is easily bested by some of the world’s other very good, and often less expensive, sparkling wines (for example, Corpinnat, Franciacorta, British Sparkling Wines, Anderson Valley bubblies… even some high-quality Proseccos deliver more bang for your buck than some poorly made French fizz). And at the same time, there are just as many examples of small, family-run wineries making superb, artisanal, and importantly, clean, bubblies but just as many are making Champagnes from unripe grapes such that their wines are marred by unpleasant green streaks when not of overly earthy and mushroomy tones.

But the fact remains that, as good and as great some of the world’s best bubblies are, when Champagne gets it right it reaches peaks of elegance, depth, and complexity that only a select few of the world’s other bubblies manage to emulate. Therein lies the uniqueness of Champagne, and its true greatness.