Eperney I believe is the real capaital of the Champagne industry and all the famous Houses in Reims have houses here - a smaller town with nothing much except the ornate Champagne Houses and caves. I'd go to Reims and also see the famous Cathedral, where kings of France were once crowned as well - Mumms. Tattinger, etc IME of going thru tours at about every Reims Champagne House cannot be beat - all are rather similar but some have more interesting things in the caves - works of art on one of them which I cannot recall.

epernay and Reims are both easily reached by train from Paris.

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/france/champagne/epernay/activities/champagne-house

Lonely Planet readers voting on best tours in Epernay.

We're planning to go in December and will train from Paris to Reims and taxi to the 2 champagne houses we want to see and a nice restaurant for lunch.....probably cheaper than a tour.

You can google Reims and see a list of Champagne producers offering tours.

Reims is lovely. The cathedral there is spectacular. A favorite memory of ours is having a glass of champs in view of the cathedral. There are lots of good champagne houses in both cities, but I vote for the TGV to Reims. You'll be there in less than an hour.

We went to Reims in May. I recommend it. We took the TGV from
Paris and arrived about 11:00 am. We spent time at the Cathedral which is beautiful. It even has Chagall windows at the very back. We then had a light lunch and toured the local art museum which I recommend. Finally, we walked the long distance up to the Pommery Caves. The English speaking tour
begins there at about 4:00 and we had advance reservations. The Pommery caves contain art exhibits to liven up the tour.
There is also a separate house tour of the Pommery family home
but we did not take that tour.After a confusing search, we found the bus back to the station. The staff at Pommery were
amazed that we wanted to take the bus back to the station and
that was my only complaint-I can't believe that they did not have the info on what bus it was and where it stopped!

If you decide to go, I highly recommend a book about Madame
Cliquot. It is available from Amazon and is by a female author. I can't remember the exact title and I just lent it
to a family member. I think that you could just type her name into Amazon and you will be able to find it.

Pat

All in all, it was a very fine day.

Pat, did you go to the Veuve Cliquot tour? I read the book and would love to do the tour.

We toured Ruinart in Reims. You have to book early for this one as they only take 8 per tour and the day we were there, they only offered one tour. It was a very leisurely paced tour that took about 2.5 hours through the caves and ending with a tasting. Ruinart is at the south end of town (around the corner from Pommery) about a half hour walk from the train station.

There's some more information about what we did in Reims in my trip report http://www.fodors.com/community/europe/champagne-and-foie-gras-another-mostly-food-paris-reims-report.cfm

We did the Veuve Cliquot Tour in May and it was awesome going down into the caves and doing a champagne tasting with a sommelier by candlelight of four Vintage Champagnes with the cheeses to match each one. it was one of the highlights of our trip. Took TGV from Paris and stayed in Reims for 3 nights....loved it and highly recommend it.

Judy,

No we did not do the Veuve Cliquot tour. I chose Pommery after
reading good things about it. The book was so interesting that
I aked the very helpful man at the tourist office if her homes
(childhood and after) could be viewed. I think that the answer was that the childhood home is now a municipal building and could be viewed from the outside but her adult home in Reims is in private hands and has a wall around it.

Pat

Pat, did you go to the Veuve Cliquot tour? I read the book and would love to do the tour>

Yes but a long time ago - it is certainly ranked right up there with the best.

I did the Mumm and Krug tour and tastings last October. Both very good.
It was a special circumstance and Monsieur Krug (who recently sold off his share) did the tour with us. We also visited the Roderer chateau and tasted several crus of Cristal but that was a specially arranged night time visit due to scheduling. I think they have regular tours during the day. Also recommended.

This is great info, thank you everyone! Do most of the champagne houses require advanced booking or are there some that take "walk-ins"?

Patty- GREAT trip report! It made me even more excited for the food in Paris. Out of all of the meals you described which place is definitely not to be missed while on our trip?

I've always walked in and never had a problem getting on a tour but then I have not been there in a few years so perhaps it has changed - but one thing I did find that many are or at least were closed between say noon and 2/2:30 so if that is still the case plan your day accordingly.

Most Reims champagne houses are about 2 miles south on the town center, maybe a tad less - I have walked it several times and not a bad walk - you pass a really ancient church en route. There is also good bus service. There is at least one Champagne house right near the Reims train station.

And behind the station is the WW2 Room - where Allied generals planned the final assault on Germany - the War Room is left as it was at the end of the world - name plaques still on the desks, war maps adorning the walls. A rather sobering site.

Reims also has a colorful open-air market on some days - under old wrought-iron market sheds redolent of those in Les Halles in Paris before they were torn down in the early 1970s or so.

Thanks, cchia130! In Reims, I believe Casanove (near the train station), Martel and Tattinger accept walk-ins but you should double check. You'll find some more information here http://www.reims-tourism.com/reims-champagne/champagne/the-champagne-houses.aspx If you do one of the shorter tours (I think the walk in ones take about an hour), you should have time to visit one champagne house in the morning, have lunch and another in the afternoon. Or you could spend time at the cathedral and/or some of the small museums which are worth visiting.

Gosh we had so many great meals that it's hard to recommend any particular one. Here's my report from December where we also did a lot of eating http://www.fodors.com/community/europe/a-mostly-food-paris-trip-report.cfm I would say the highlights for us from the 2 trips were Septime, Kei, Sola, La Table d'Aki but it depends on what you're looking for. Fine dining, casual, classical, modern, price range? Do you have any issue with no choice/limited choice menus (most of the ones I listed are)? There are some good value bistronomique places like Neva Cuisine and Bistro Volnay. A couple of the places I wrote about, Au Passage and L'Office, have just changed chefs so my comments may or may not apply anymore.