In March this year Zoran went off to Charleville-Mézières to follow a three day course to get our license to serve alcohol to our guests. Now Charleville-Mézières is a beautiful city but terrible to find affordable parking, so he left bright and early to search for one. Luckily there was a spacious parking in front of the building at €17 per day. There were quite some fellow students and Zoran was happy to meet a lovely lady that makes vegan Champagne with her husband, gives tours around their vineyard and explains how Champagne is made. There was also a nice fellow that organizes balloon trips over the Champagne fields while tasting some wine or Champagne. This may be something very romantic to book while proposing to your loved one !
Since we are in the Champagne Ardennes it might be nice to know that the inventor of the Champenoise method (which is used to make Champagne) was the Benedict monk Dom Perignon who was born 21 km from our B&B in Sainte Menehould. There is a nice statue of Dom Perignon and at the tourist office you can get a map to take a lovely walk around the city.
Anyway, at lunch they took off to a restaurant called L’Edito. Unfortunately this restaurant thinks a Vegan and gluten free lunch means something greasy and overcooked, so Zoran decided to bring his own lunch the following days.
Overall it was an interesting course. Of course everything was in French with some Frenglish words used now and then, but interesting concerning the current law, our obligations, the fines (which lie between €50 and € 1.000.000 depending on the offence), and lots more.
It turns out France was a country renowned for alcoholism in the early 1920’s so youngsters under 16 are absolutely not allowed to drink and the law is very strict concerning closing times and noise disturbance, probably to keep alcohol abuse within limits.
Because we have a Bed and Breakfast Zoran could have taken a one day course which only covers hygiene and obligatory public notifications, but because of the extended one we have more options. HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) is not applicable for B&B’s but Samantha does have her HACCP certificate so you can be sure your food is prepared in a hygienic way. Due to this extended course Zoran now has his Licence III so we can serve you a lovely glass of Vegan wine with dinner, fruit liqueurs up to 18% or we can have a nice bottle of vegan Champagne ready for you in your room when you arrive. After declaring our Licence III at our local town hall, which is only open on Thursday afternoon, we were finally eligible to serve Alcohol up to 18% two weeks later!