In caves deep underground in France?s Champagne region lie thousands of shells that are 45 million years old, a site researchers describe as ?rare and exceptional? ? and which may have influenced the flavour of the local bubbly. ?It?s my paradise,? says Patrice Legrand, a champagne producer and owner of the ?Cave aux Coquillages? or […]The post The Ancient Underground Shells Flavoring France’s Champagne appeared first on Pursuitist.

In caves deep underground in France?s Champagne region lie thousands of shells that are 45 million years old, a site researchers describe as ?rare and exceptional? ? and which may have influenced the flavour of the local bubbly.?It?s my paradise,? says Patrice Legrand, a champagne producer and owner of the ?Cave aux Coquillages? or Shell Cave, in the Montagne de Reims regional park in northeastern France.Legrand, 55, who is also an amateur paleontologist, acquired the vineyard in the early 1990s and set about excavating the caves, which are now open to the public.Trapped in a thick layer of limestone, in around 250 metres (820 feet) of underground galeries, are thousands of shells that have been untouched since their sudden disappearance for reasons that are still unknown.Apart from cephalopods and tiny seashells, some of them microscopic, which Legrand has painstakingly cleaned and catalogued, the star of the visit is undoubtedly the Campaniles giganteum ? gastropods with spiral tube-shaped shells that are 40 to 60 centimetres (16 to...