Bubble Bliss: A Champagne Bar and the Story of Underground Cellars

Bubble Bliss is a champagne-only bar that opened in September 2024: in other words, a champagne experience bar. We feature it because it serves not just big-name houses but hundreds of small, independent producers. Most champagne available outside France comes from large, well-funded houses, so our guide wanted to show you a wider range.

You can find more than 250 brands here, and glass-pour selections are rotated regularly (though not on a fixed schedule), which gives people reasons to return. Food made to go with champagne, with perfect pairings, is also served; meals usually require a reservation through the website. The interior looks like a modern renovation of an underground cellar in Champagne.

In Champagne, wine is typically stored in underground cellars, or caves, which are a remarkable cultural heritage in their own right and were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2015. Reims and Épernay, the heart of Champagne, are famous for their labyrinthine networks of cellars stretching beneath the surface. The cellars fall into two main types.

The first is the crayère, found mainly in Reims, a natural underground chalk cave. These spaces use natural caves in huge chalk (limestone) deposits that have been quarried for stone since Roman times. The chalk keeps humidity at 80 to 90 percent and the temperature steady at 10 to 12 °C year-round, an ideal environment for aging champagne.

The second is the gallery cellar, found in Épernay, where the whole city is connected by a vast network of cellars underground. Famous houses such as Moët & Chandon have tunnel-like galleries running for tens of kilometers, linking the city's underside like a giant maze. Most of these cellars were dug by hand in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Champagne's underground cellars carry the history and tradition of champagne and are an important cultural and gastronomic symbol. We hope that by enjoying champagnes from many producers at Bubble Bliss, you'll experience a little of that history too.

Our next stop is close, but check the route and our destination, Rue de Buci, on your map. Rue de Buci is a place to walk slowly while listening, so it helps to look ahead to the route to the following stop, Le Procope, so you don't wander too far. The street is very short; search "Rue de Buci" on Google and that short street comes right up. Turn right at the end of the street to reach the next stop.