What's Going On in the World of French Wines

I’ll be honest – I’ve always considered Burgundy to be my Achilles heel of the wine world: I love the wines from this region of France and find them completely fascinating, but the sheer number of different appellations and vineyards, as well as producers, has always confused me a little bit. Add to that the fact that I don’t really speak any French, so the names on the bottle frequently don’t sound the same way as they are spelled, and you have a bit of a challenge.

What’s a wine lover to do? Well, for one thing, you can’t let it stop you. You have to bravely plunge right into Burgundy because if you decide to …

The summer in between my junior and senior years of college, I spent several weeks in Belgium on an art history study abroad program. It just so happened, that while I was there, my aunt and uncle and their two little boys were visiting France on vacation. Since train travel is so easy in Europe, one weekend I headed down to Rheims (Reims in French), a major city in the Champagne region.

Cindy and Jon, my aunt and uncle, are passionate travelers and so we spent the day exploring the beautiful city of Rheims. We toured the fantastic Notre-Dame de Reims (the …