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Craie à bélemnites

French name for a special type of chalk (belemnite chalk, shell limestone), which literally means "chalk of the belemnites". The belemnites (thunderbolts or devil's fingers) were a group of cephalopods with ten tentacles and an ink sac and were similar in appearance to today's squid. These marine animals lived in the coastal area of the oceans close to the water surface and were widespread from the Lower Carboniferous to the end of the Cretaceous and became extinct with the dinosaurs around 65 million years ago.

This type of chalk is a typical component of the soil in French Champagne, which gives the grape varieties and thus the Champagne pressed from them their unmistakable flavour. The Romans used this chalk here to build roads. Today, the kilometre-long caves created by the quarries serve as ideal wine cellars with a constant temperature of 10 to 11 °C and 70 to 90% humidity.

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