Champagne Mystery Tour: The Great Champagne Caper

Meet your fellow undercover fizz enthusiasts at London St Pancras where we'll establish three things: everyone's brought their passport, nobody's packed a corkscrew in their hand luggage and at least one person has already asked when we're opening the Champagne.

We're heading to Reims by train, changing somewhere in France. There is no direct Eurostar to Reims but that won't stop us pretending we're on the Orient Express.

Once safely aboard, the celebrations can begin with a glass of bubbly or two.

On arrival, we'll check into our hotel before embarking on our first classified Champagne mission.

Tonight includes a welcome tasting and a proper French dinner, during which your host will reveal absolutely nothing useful about tomorrow.

Tonight's mission: Get to know your fellow travellers. Forget their names by glass three. Remember them at breakfast.

Breakfast is followed by a departure to somewhere we cannot disclose for reasons of national security. And it would also ruin the surprise.

Our first stop introduces you to a winemaker who does things rather differently. There will be excellent Champagne, fascinating stories and quite possibly a person who talks to their grapes.

Next comes a delicious local lunch followed by a mystery experience involving something you wouldn't normally associate with Champagne.

In the afternoon, we visit another small producer, whose bottles probably haven't appeared in an airport duty-free shop or been photographed next to a Formula 1 driver.

Back in Reims, there's time to freshen up before dinner and an entirely unofficial meeting of the International Society of People Who Prefer Another Glass.

Today's mission: Discover whether expensive Champagne really tastes better when you have absolutely no idea what it costs.

A day of Champagne's most spectacularly strange secrets.

Today we venture deep into Champagne country to discover that the locals have been hiding far more than decent bottles.

Our first mystery destination is so peculiar you'll wonder whether we've accidentally crossed into a different country. Expect something ancient, something spectacularly odd and absolutely no sensible explanation from your host.

Then it's time for a leisurely countryside lunch, accompanied by more local Champagne and an entirely unnecessary debate about whether drinking before midday counts as cultural education.

This afternoon brings another independent producer and a tasting with a twist. Forget sniffing, swirling and announcing that you can detect wet limestone and your grandmother's handbag.

We're conducting the Tipple Tours International Blind Champagne Championships.

Can you distinguish a £30 bottle from something costing three times as much? Can you identify a grape variety? Can you remain dignified while wearing a blindfold? Three questions. Three increasingly disappointing answers.

Tonight is our grand finale: a celebratory dinner, a few exceptional bottles and an awards ceremony featuring categories such as Most Confidently Incorrect Tasting Note and Person Most Likely to Open a Champagne House in Their Shed.

After breakfast, there's time for one final Champagne-related surprise, assuming the return train schedule allows it.

Then it's back aboard the French train and Eurostar to London.

By now you'll have met some extraordinary people, tasted some excellent Champagne, discovered things your geography teacher never mentioned and made several new friends who know precisely how terrible you are at blind tasting.

You'll also have absolutely no idea how many photographs of Champagne bottles are now on your phone.

Mission complete. Dignity optional.