Champagne Henri Giraud

This is actually one of the one star reviews that I feel bad about writing. It didn’t start out this way. In fact, we had a fairly nice time when we stopped in. They are open for tasting without a reservation, which is always a bonus when you’re in the area. They also offer a complementary tasting which is also nice, except on some level when they do this, you feel kind of obligated to buy something.
The woman serving us Champagne was really nice and sweet, and explained a lot about the Champagne house and the region to us. And she helped us out with learning about other things in the area. The wine she gave us was enjoyable, but at this point we had bought two bottles of Champagne in restaurants, so we had an idea about pricing/​taste from that. And the prices here seemed really inflated. The wine we tried was around 40 – 100 Euros per bottle, but didn’t really seem much better than the bottles we had in the restaurants which were roughly the same price, but given they were in a restaurant we knew that the prices were higher than you would get if you just purchased a bottle in a shop or the winery. We told her that we had a bottle of Vintage 2000 Champagne in the restaurant at dinner the night before, and when we told her the price, she seemed shocked as the Vintage 2000 Champagne they sell here is over 200 Euros a bottle. So we tried to find something we really liked that seemed like it was priced reasonably. We didn’t really find anything, but because we had about 5 glasses of Champagne, we finally decided to by a bottle of sweet wine (Ratafia) because we felt we should buy something.
The death stare the woman gave us for a few seconds when we decided to only buy a bottle of that (which was still around 30 Euros, but cheaper than any of the Champagne they sold) was one of the worst I’ve seen. So we left feeling a bit guilty, but glad we purchased something.
As we traveled around the area trying other Champagnes, most of which were as good or better than the Champagne you can buy here, but insanely cheaper, I started to get more and more annoyed. What was it about this place that thinks they can sell their Champagne for a lot more than other places? But the icing on the cake was when we went into a wine shop in Château-​Thierry, and they sold wine from this winery in the shop. For about 20−30% cheaper than you can buy it at the winery. (That 30 Euro bottle of Ratafia? 23.50 Euros at the shop.) The whole point of buying from the winery is because it’s cheaper than or as cheap as buying it in a wine shop. But obviously, they’re just ripping people off who walk in as you can get it cheaper other places.
Honestly, if you can go into a place and drink free Champagne and leave without buying anything, this place is pretty good for that. If you’re going to be guilted in to buying something, you may want to avoid this place and try something else.

Fantastic spot, off the beaten path. We stumbled across this place on a walk from Epernay to Ay – yes, a walk! And what a find. The woman who served us a complimentary tasting was one of the owners, and we had the place to ourselves. Truly, this was some of the tastiest bubbly of our trip, and the experience was highly memorable. We each bought a bottle or two and lugged it back – on foot – to Epernay.
A great spot to get away from the tasting hordes while still enjoying the region’s finest product! Although the tastings are complimentary, the purchase prices are a bit higher than some small producers in Epernay, but it’s well worth it.