Champagne --- Sorry, "Crémant" --- Factory Tour in Beaune
"Crémant" is the generic french term for sparkling wine, since you can only call it champagne when it comes from the Champagne region of France.
The Veuve Ambal company has a large crémant bottling plant on the outskirts of Beaune, just off the motorway, and they offer guided tours of it most days of the year for 6 euros. The tour is available in multiple languages. They take you around the plant and use a series of short videos to explain the crémant-making process and give a history of the company. The tour takes a little less than an hour. It's all very modern and automated here. A tour guide accompanies you around the plant and answers any questions or topics not covered by the videos.
After the tour, comes the tasting! Included with your admission, they give you generous tastes of a handful of different varieties of their product. They were all excellent to our taste, and it is very interesting to compare the assortment head to head. They also have a boutique where we purchased a couple of bottles to enjoy later on at our hotel room.
If you're looking for damp, nitre-encrusted vaults, big oak barrels, and a very personal touch to your wine, this is not the place for you. But even our 12-year-old daughter, too young for drinking the product, really enjoyed the tour.
From journal A Mix of Short Getaways in Southeast France