Champagne breakfast

On Friday we began the day with a leisurely drive through the stunning region that gives its name to a drink loved by some of the worlds most iconic figures - Napoleon, Churchill and Charlie Nicholas, to name but a few. Leather skinned farmers moved between the vines inspecting their harvest in the steamy mid June heat, while green fingered villagers tended to their blossoming rose gardens. Again we passed rows of war graves, with one resting place on the edge of Marfaux appearing particularly well maintained. It’s due to the hard work of a few thousand volunteers that these sites are so well preserved and they should serve as a constant reminder to the war mongering elites of today as to the horrors of conflict.

Approaching Epernay, a town that boasts 110km of underground cellars dedicated to housing the areas liquid gold, we began to pass vineyards subtly marked with some of the worlds most recognisable brand names. Moet & Chandon here, Pol Roger there. As we would later discover on our guided tour of the town's 'Boizel' Champagne house, the grapes must still be retrieved by hand and then pressed within three hours to satisfy the exacting standards of 'The Comite Champagne'. This is done over a three week period when 100,000 pickers descend upon the sleepy villages, attacking the slopes like an army of ants to fulfil the globes demand for bubbles. The ownership of 'Boizel', unlike the majority of the other houses, continues to be in the hands of the family that founded it. Now in its sixth generation, the dynasty continues to thrive, constantly striving to perfect their craft whilst introducing intrigued visitors to the nuances of the trade.

On the tour we were joined by a lovely German couple who we found out where Deustchland's biggest James fans, and an Edinburgh lass (Louise) and her Dutch partner (Rob) who'd been on a road trip around France. After much back and forth while sampling the house’s vintage, we figured out that we had a mutual connection of sorts, Louise's brother in law is a Morton fan. We face-timed him and had a bit of crack about Andy Ritchie and the Ton's famous 'cowshed'. You know what they say, you're never more than six foot from a rat or six people removed from a Greenock Morton fan, or something to that effect.

Luna’s spotted a glass