In 1977 I traveled to Europe with two of my closest friends, Dan and Marc. We were all 20 or 21 years old and this was our first trip to another country with the exception of Mexico or Canada.

Marc's father owned a high end liquor store in the San Fernando Valley that specialized in wines, so he carried a pocket full of business cards that opened a lot of doors when traveling through France.

The most memorable time we had was in Reims, not too far from Paris where we took a tour of the Mumm facility which is a world famous producer of champagne.

When Marc flashed his business card, we were escorted out of the waiting tour group and were given a private tour with the assistant wine maker. We went to a private room where she opened a bottle of Rene Lalou, which at the time was their top of the line brand. All of the rest of the tour group had Cordon Rouge, no slouch of a champagne, but no Rene Lalou either!

At the end of the bottle which the 3 of us shared, we were given the bottle as a souvenir. I somehow managed, perhaps fueled by the alcohol, to persuade her to give us also some of the ash trays that were in the waiting room as additional souvenirs. The ash trays have the Cordon Rouge logo on them and one of them resides in my curio cabinet to this day to remind me of that great experience.

Now that I live in the wine country of California, I always manage to go to as many of the sparkling wine houses as I can to try and recapture that moment of my youth. 

Nothing like those bubbles....