Champagne I

About 35000 acres of vines, and each small lot bearing a concrete marker of the wine maker. Here is Anne looking at one of Mercier's paddocks.

Then we did a tour of Mercier's cellars. The Renault actually followed the 1930 Tour de France around the country.

The world's biggest barrell. It holds 200,000 bottles. They took it to Paris for the 1870 (?) exhibition, and it was second only to the Eiffel Tower in popularity.

18 km of cellars, and millions of bottles. The tour is conducted on a train that is guided by laser reflection from guides in the roof. Apparently camera flashes are also reflected from these guides, and the train has been known to career off and wipe out half a vingtage.