The champagne house Mercier greets you with this gigantic wine barrel! It is so big that 200,000 bottles of champagne could fit inside. It was featured at the Paris Expo in 1889 along with the Eiffel tower. It was a hit at the expo but to get it there they had a team of 24 oxen and 16 horses. Bridges had to be re-enforced, trees cut down and portions of houses needed to be removed. This was the first champagne house that was opened to the public and to this day it is the most accessible. We took an elevator to the cellars, rode around in a train and took the elevator back up. The founder was innovative in that he realized the power of marketing and every chance he got he put the Mercier name out there. He also banded together several small growers and vintners together to make a bigger conglomerate that was capable of competing with the bigger houses.
This barrel is something to behold
Our laser guided, self driving train
No flash photography! It may cause the train to go in the wrong direction.
18 km of cellars for this winery along
Sculptures line the walls
Chubby Cherubs
These bass relief sculptures were carved by a famous artist
Racks of racks
Not actual miners creating the cellars
Also at the 1889 expo but a bit too racy for folks at that time
The vault and a cut out figure to protect it
Dom Perignon himself
A bit moldy around the edges
An imperial crest?
Great details
The wall of the elevator had the back wall transparent that we could watch the film showing
the back of the barrel
Intricate carving on the front and the back
Champagne for all of us
If you look to the left, you can see a person for scale
200,000 bottles capacity
132 years old
A close up of the carvings
This is not a grave stone
The top of a champagne cork
Top heavy tower
Heading home
They keep on coming
Our order of champagne has arrived!
