Before Nathalie left last Friday she took
us to their co-operative ‘Dom Caudron’ in Passy Grigny, 10-minute drive up the
road. We were given a personal
tour in English around the co-op and museum and then watched a film on the
process of champagne making. It
was very interesting.
Nathalie and Christian sell the bulk of
their picked grapes to the co-op.
These grapes are mixed with other grapes of the area and the Dom Caudron
champagne is produced. Nathalie
says the flavour of this champagne never changes. It is a set formula that is followed.
Christian makes his own champagne with the remainder
of the picked grapes. Nathalie
markets and sells their own champagne via their website. I asked Nathalie about shipping to
Australia, she said it would be too expensive. What a shame it is delicious. Their market is France, Belgium and England.
After the co-op we went to their
vineyard. The vines still had many
grapes even though they finished picking a week ago. Nathalie says under French law (and apparently there are
many laws) grape growers are only allowed to pick so many grapes, the rest will
be cut off and thrown away not before the casual staff that help with the
picking get to take a few, maybe for their own wine making I assume.
The oldest vines Christian has growing is
45 years. These belonged to his
grandfather. Vines are depleted
after 50 years of producing. At
this age they should be pulled.
Nathalie said they are always growing new vines to replace old.
Also, on Friday Nathalie showed us the
three bakeries in town, the best for croissants, the best for cakes and the
best for baguette - the essentials of a French life.
We have been here a week now and settled
into a routine with the dogs. We
walk them each morning after breakfast.
I’ll admit we aren’t getting out of bed till 8am, it is still dark. The dogs don’t stir till then and we
are happy to leave them as quiet as possible for as long as possible. The sun doesn’t seem to rise till
between 8 & 9. I also admit I
am feeling homesick at the moment with the sun gone into hibernation for the
autumn and no friends around us. We
were spoilt having Laurel with us for a few weeks.
During the week we went on a couple of
local drives and up to Paris for the day on Wednesday to the Indian visa office
(take two). The train station is
within walking distance from the house, so handy. The trip took one hour; the visit to the visa office was
under an hour, so far so good. We
wander back to the train station as the next train is in one hour and don’t
want to leave the dogs too long.
Lucky Jim notices a yellow flashing word in front of our train on the
departures board. He puts it in
his iphone French translator and it means ‘cancelled’. Great! The next train is in four hours time and at this stage we
are not even sure if it is going.
We find the information office and the helpful young girl (in her broken
English) tells us that the line is being repaired, something to do with a tractor. She says we need to catch a suburban
train to the end of the line and then a taxi will be called for us to take us
to Dormans. Simple!!!!!
Two hours later we end up being we are
meant to be. When we get off the
train we decide to follow two ladies, they are headed in our direction and look
like they’re on a mission. We
reach the office and the younger of the ladies starts going off at the admin
guy. I say to a young lady standing
between us and them, ‘Dormans’ and she asks me am I English. All is good, she helps us out and yes
we were right the other two ladies are also trying to get to Dormans. A half hour later a taxi pulls up and
the four of us start our road trip to Dormans, it takes a half hour. Not far along the road police are on
the side of the road with their lights flashing. The angrier younger lady starts going off again. I say at this rate we’re never going to
get to Dormans, first a tractor, now an accident. At this the angry one laughs, turns out she speaks a little
English so now we joke about how dangerous it is getting to Dormans – a quiet
country village.
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| The Marne River at the end of the street |
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| Jim & Bandit |
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| DS & Filou |
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| Dom Caudron co-op |
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| Typical local countryside driving around |
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| View overlooking Chatillon-Sur-Marne |
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