This year, I was fortunate to visit the Champagne region of France during harvest, and one of the biggest treats was eating lunch with the cellar workers.

It was a long way from burritos and burgers.

I was there to check out the harvest, which is very short, only two weeks. The region is relatively compact and uniform, and they grow only three grape varieties, so they don’t have the extended harvest we do here in Napa Valley.

The result is that it’s intense. Every road was filled with trucks carrying grapes and juice (they generally press close to the vineyards rather than transporting the grapes very far) and busses filled with the picking crews. Roadsides were crowded with cars, trucks and picking equipment.

The picking crew is unlike ours in Napa. Because the harvest is so short there’s not enough work there for migrant workers. Instead, locals, many taking advantage of the generous vacation time mandatory in Europe, spend a few weeks making some money, partying with friends. The pickers seem to be pretty mixed in gender — and all eat good food.

The wineries and growers feed the workers, and though we didn’t generally eat with the pickers, some joined the winery cellar help — as well as owners, managers and office workers — at lunch.

We stayed in the center of Reims, a beautiful city of about 200,000 half an hour by TGV (the fast train) from Paris. It’s best known for its magnificent cathedral of Norte Dame but also noted as the site where the Germans surrendered in World War II. Like most European cities, it’s eminently livable, with amenities within walking distance of everyone, good bus service and even a new tram being built to make things even better.

At a welcoming seafood dinner  — although we were far from the sea, Champagne and shellfish are natural — we all stuffed ourselves. Some creatures I couldn’t identify, but then neither could our hosts.

The first visit the next day was to Champagne Leclrec Briant, a completely biodynamic producer, one of 32 in Champagne. Proprietor Pascal Leclrec-Briant, an enchanting Frenchman, is the fifth generation of his family to make Champagne. His small operation is totally manual, with giant basket presses extracting the juice from whole clusters to start the process.

After a tour of the winemaking, we sat down to a long table with picnic benches and the workers joined us. Like all the other such lunches, it was a four-course meal that you might order at Bistro Jeanty or Angele. The menu included paté en croute, coq au vin served with decadent scalloped potatoes, a simple lettuce salad, cheese course with rich butter, and apple and apricot cheese tart

Naturally we had Champagne with the meal, plus some of the relatively rare still pinot noir and pinot meunier made in the area. The workers preferred red wine, as at every winery.

With the last course, the cook, a local woman who’s also an entertainer, sang traditional café songs with enthusiasm and skill.

We toured vineyards before returning to Reims to tour the cathedral. That evening, we visited giant Pommery with its ancient caves filled with modern art, some inscrutable. Dinner was much fancier.

The next morning, after a presentation about the Champagne region from a director of the local equivalent of the Napa Valley Vinters, we headed for another smaller winery, Champagne Larmandier-Bernier, with charming co-proprietor Sophie Larmandier-Bernier and her winemaker husband, Pierre. The small producer is innovative and has a deserved reputation for its wines, although they, like many we tasted, are hard to find here.

Again, we had lunch with the staff: mixed vegetable salad, coq au vine, mashed potatoes (oddly instant), salad, cheese and chocolate mousse.

That evening, it was Champagne Jacquesson with owner M. Jean-Hervé Chiquet. The winery makes 25,000 cases from more than 48 vineyards. Part is organic, and more soon will be. He served a relatively simple buffet dinner.

The next morning, we visited Champagne Billecart Salmon, famous for its elegant rosé Champagne. The owner, Francois Roland-Billecart, is the seventh generation in the business; the founders, his ancestors, were descended from Vikings who settled in Normandy. He noted that many of the Champagne houses used to dismiss rosé, but now it’s more than 10 percent of the market.

The winery uses 400 pickers and gets grapes from 230 growers. Roland-Billecart says the winery’s growers are “halfway between biodynamics and the traditional method.” He adds that he’s a big fan of pinot meunier and seems the world’s media underappreciates, it.

Lunch included, salmon gravlax and shrimp salad (with the rosé), followed by beef Burgundy (they’re very close to Burgundy, and the local pinot noir is similar), decadent mashed potatoes, cheese and tate tatin. In this case, I checked what the workers were eating, and it was simpler, with more vegetables and it looked very good.

That evening was a special treat visiting maverick and innovative producer Bruno Paillard, one of the newer major producers. He invited us to him home for dinner; if any Frenchman invites you to dinner at home, go!

The next, and last morning, we traveled an hour and a half south to the Aube or Cotes du Bar, which is separated from the rest of Champagne and is best known for its pinot meunier, a grape that ripens earlier, important in the cool climate of the region.

Champagne Serge Mathieu is also innovative. Winemaker Michel Jacob and his wife, Isabelle Mathieu-Jacob, run a mom-and-pop operation far from the tourist trails, but produce excellent wines. As with most of the other producers we visited, he’s very conscious of the environment and takes many steps to be eco-friendly, such as using lighter bottles.

Next was the large Champagne Alexandre Bonnet, part of the Lanson Group, which makes 22 million bottles of Champagne a year, second after Moet, the 800-pound gorilla in Champagne. It was a last-minute replacement for another winery.

Though large, it produces tasty wines that are reasonably priced. Lunch was, perhaps, the least impressive, not surprising with the short time they had to prepare. It still consisted of a salad of hard-boiled eggs, green peas and carrots in Russian dressing, braised pork with farfalle pasta with butter (and the pork drippings), a cheese course of processed packaged individual cheeses and apple tart or clafoutis.

The last meeting was at another large and modern producer, co-op Chateau Devaux, which has 800 grower members. It produces a wide range of wines, certainly excellent, if not as prestigious, as some others.

We stayed that night in Troyes, then headed for home the next day.

I should add a note about the food. Other than the dinners, the food was good French home cooking prepared mostly by part-time cooks, sometimes aunts or cousins, not gourmet. It was excellent, but not on the level you’d find at our local French restaurants. But it was a lot better than workers get here!