France at its most sparkling! How to sip your way around the Champagne region, from caves filled with millions of dusty bottles to restaurants that serve great fizz

  • Britain drinks more champagne than any other country apart from France
  • So go and visit the scenic vineyards where the most famous fizz is made
  • Try one of Winston Churchill’s favourites and the bottle named after him 

The humiliation of French wine-makers must be great. In a recent blind tasting comparing English sparkling wine and proper champagne, the French judges couldn't tell the difference.

Many were convinced some of the UK-produced fizz was — sacre bleu! — French. And, in most cases, they preferred it to champagne.

If you feel like rubbing it in when you drive around the rolling chalklands of Champagne — 90 miles north-east of Paris — tell anyone wearing a beret that this triumph is really no surprise. Sparkling wine is, after all, a British invention.

Raise a glass: Vineyards in the pretty village of Marne, close to the home of Krug and Mumm champagnes

Raise a glass: Vineyards in the pretty village of Marne, close to the home of Krug and Mumm champagnes

Christopher Merret reported on a 'gay, brisk and sparkling wine' to the Royal Society in 1662 — 30 years before Dom Perignon popped a cork and discovered that his wine had gone all fizzy.

Britain drinks more champagne than any other country apart from France (35 million bottles a year). It matures under pavements and in caves around Reims and Épernay, twin capitals of the region. Reims — home to famous brands including Krug and Mumm — has plenty of tours of its famous champagne houses. Épernay has among its treasures Moet et Chandon and Veuve Clicquot.

In Reims, visit the champagne house Ruinart (pre-booking essential) which has incredibly Gallo-Roman chalk caves lined with millions of dusty bottles.

The best bit of any tour — and they are all the same since the process of fermentation in the bottle is identical — is the tasting.

The gaseous 'phut' of the cork is a ruinously addictive sound, so take a car with plenty of boot space.

Reims was the coronation city of choice for 33 French kings. It is also justly famous for its vast cathedral. Re-roofed after terrible shell damage in World War I, on no account miss the truly gorgeous blue windows beyond the altar by the Russian artist Marc Chagall.

For lunch, try Le Bocal, a restaurant nearby on the Rue de Mars. Order the catch of the day and a glass or two of fizz as an aperitif. My great discovery was a champagne called Castelnau, made in the town. The brand is 100 years old this year and is named after a French World War I general.

It's a reminder of the region's melancholy history. The price France paid in World War I can be seen in the Douaumont Ossuary — an hour by car to the east of Reims. This long building contains the bones — piled in heaps which you can see through glass — of some of the hundreds of thousands who died in the 300-day battle of Verdun a century ago.

Forever growing bubbles: Find your favourite fizz at restaurants such as Le Bocal, near Reims

Forever growing bubbles: Find your favourite fizz at restaurants such as Le Bocal, near Reims

Among the great squadrons of white crosses, you can feel something of France's suffering. Yet the amazing truth is that for the French, it wasn't even the bloodiest campaign of the war. It wasn't even the bloodiest of 1916.

For fans of more recent French history, 90 minutes south-east from Épernay is the village Colombey-Les-Deux-Eglises where you'll find a museum devoted to General de Gaulle and his era.

He was a frosty old stick, but at home he liked to wander about his pretty garden (it's nearby) with his daughter. De Gaulle's favourite champagne was Drappier, which has a wine named after him. And Pol Roget produces a champagne with Winston Churchill's name on — he was a big fan.

It is claimed that for taste, the optimum champagne bottle size a magnum (a double bottle). If you are on holiday, it's the ideal size for two people. 'Especially if one of you isn't drinking,' Churchill might have added.

Travel Facts: Plan your own weekend in Champagne country 

P&O Ferries (poferries.com, 0800 130 0030) offers return Dover-Calais sailings from £65 per car (until July 14). By car from Calais, you can be in Champagne country in less than four hours.