The trip starts in style. I’m met directly off the plane, on the jet bridge, by a smartly attired young chap who whisks me through passport checks and baggage collection at Charles de Gaulle and into a private chauffeur-driven car that rushes through the French countryside, into the glorious Champagne-Ardenne region and to the elegant cathedral city of Reims. Hotel du Marc is pretty imposing, it feels a little bit like you’re coming to visit royalty and the “quick snack” I’m presented with upon arrival is certainly fit for a king…

The regal property – part of the Clicquot family’s estate since 1840 and a former residence of Madame Clicquot herself – bears only a few scars from the WWI fighting that decimated the surrounding city, extensive work to the façade retaining them as if to add that ‘prize-fighter’ character. But, resplendent as the exteriors may be, it’s inside where the magic happens. The former colleague of Andrée Putman and creative force behind Cartier’s international boutiques, Bruno Moinard, was the man chosen by the champagne house’s Directrice Générale, Sabina Belli, to revolutionise the interiors of this historic mansion, and what a job he’s done…

It’s as if you’re spending the night inside the bastard lovechild of the Louvre and Tate Modern, and every bit as brilliant as that sounds too.

Fusing the house’s unquestionable heritage with blistering, contemporary works from world-renowned designers and artists, Moinard has masterminded a very special restoration that’s firmly in keeping with the brand’s reputation for mixing it at the forefront of international design. One-off commissions, such as Pablo Reinoso‘s mind-boggling reworking of his famous Spaghetti Bench [pictured above], are around every corner and rest alongside original artworks and features from the 1800s… It’s as if you’re spending the night inside the bastard lovechild of the Louvre and Tate Modern, and every bit as brilliant as that sounds too.

We intriguingly experience two sides to the Hotel du Marc’s decidedly lavish bar; by day we’re invited to muck in on the cooking of our own seafood lunch (complete with signature yellow pinnies) and by night, rather inexplicably, the lights go down, out roll two projector screens and the space transforms into a kind of hip Parisian bar, complete with Lady Gaga live videos. Honestly… It’s a bit of a shock but offers a valuable insight into the brand; yes it’s steeped in history and old world heritage, but is equally playful and extravagant. It also compounds the fact that Hotel du Marc is a place for any occasion, for any guest. Friends of the house, from pop stars to dignitaries, will all find their very own little slice of special here.

Upon “checking-out” we’re treated to a tour of the brand’s breathtaking 24 kilometres of chalk cellars, housed underneath the Saint-Nicaise hills. Amongst some of the world’s oldest champagnes, we had the pleasure of witnessing, first hand, one of the bottles of Veuve Clicquot discovered in a Baltic Sea shipwreck off the Åland Islands of Finland. Thought to date from the early 1840s, a bottle has recently sold for €30,000, the world record for a bottle of champagne. Whirlwind tour over and we’re heading back to Paris; this adventure, it seems, has only just begun…

To be continued…