The Leg
The sixth leg begins with detective Louie and Michael getting their first clue telling them to drive to Reims, France. There, teams will head to the famous cathedral where they’ll find a statue of Joan of Arc and a woman playing a saw, who will hand them their next clue.
Steve & Allie reach Joan of Arc first and are handed a cork with “Champagne Leclerc Briant” printed on it. A local tells them it is located in Epernay. The detectives follow the cowboys to the statue, and the cowboys remember seeing a sign on the highway to the town Chalon de Champagne and decide that’s where they need to go. Dan & Jordan are close behind and head to the office of tourism where they meet up with the detectives. The two teams drive to Epernay together.
They get to the Leclerc Briant and find the Road Block. Phil says teams will have to party like it’s 1799.
In this Road Block, teams will first rappel over 100 feet down into the caverns of the winery. Once inside, they will search the caves for one bottle that is marked with the Race flag. Once they walk back up the stairs, they’ll open the bottle by using a sabre and the clue will pop out with the cork.
Jordan goes down first and finds the bottle with the little Race flag sticker on it and runs back up the stairs. Louie and Steve follow. Outside, Jordan sabres the cork off and they find the next clue with “Taittinger La Marqueterrie” printed on a piece of paper. The chateau and vineyard is located in Pierry and there they will find their next clue.
The cowboys get to Chalon de Champagne and a local tells them they are in the wrong town, so they drive back. Brent & Caite get to Epernay but are at the wrong statue.
Looking for the Marqueterrie, Dan & Jordan go to an office of tourism where the lady tells them the Taittinger is in Reims. Meanwhile, Louie & Michael stop at a hotel and are told, correctly, that it is in Pierry. The lady even offers some guy in a Porsche to lead them there.
Steve & Allie ask a guy working on a house and he tells them it is in Reims, while Carol & Brandy get the right directions from a hotel also. When Jet & Cord finish the Road Block, they ask a lady walking outside the winery and she tells them it is in Reims. That’s twice for the cowboys today!
The detectives, with the help of a personal tour guide, get to the Taittinger La Marqueterrie and they find the Detour. In this Detour teams will choose between two kinds of work associated with champagne.
In Tower, teams will use exactly 680 glasses to build a tower exactly 15 levels high with only one glass on top. Once they build the tower without breaking any glasses, they’ll fill them with champagne and get the next clue.
In Terra, teams will search one square kilometer of the barren winter vineyard for a cluster of grapes with a small race flag attached. When they find it, they’ll take it to the harvest foreman who’ll exchange it for their next clue.
Louie & Michael decide on Terra.
Meanwhile, Dan & Jordan have arrived back in Reims and find Taittinger. They head inside and the woman tells them the place they are looking for, a chateau, is in Pierry. This is where they make wine. They head off.
As Brent & Caite and then Jeff & Jordan finish the Road Block, Steve & Allie get to Reims. Steve crashes the car into something and the front right side of the car is now caved in and scraping against the tire. They consider asking for a new car, but instead remember mom packing some duct tape in their bag, so they use it to fix up the car and keep the wrecked piece from dragging on the wheel.
Jeff & Jordan go to a tourism office and are told Tattinger is in Reims as well. Thanks a lot France Tourism.
Louie & Michael finish the Detour as they find the grapes and get their final clue, telling to head to L’Orcca, the cultural administration for Champagne and the Pit Stop for this leg of the Race. For the third straight time, they finish Team #1. Woop.
Dan & Jordan arrive at the chateau and decide to do the skill over the luck, so they head inside to stack the glasses. But Carol & Brandy are right behind them and choose the grapes which they finish quickly and head off to the Pit Stop to check in as Team #2. But not before a lost Brent & Caite see them on the road and decide to follow them. Realizing they haven’t done the Detour, they head back.
Steve & Allie finish the Terra Detour quickly too and head to the Pit Stop where they check in 3rd and inform Phil of the car. Brent & Caite arrive at the chateau with Brent deciding to do Terra while Caite thinks they should do the Tower. Jet & Cord are right behind them and they manage to find the grapes first and officially check in as Team #4.
Brent & Caite switch Detours and find Dan & Jordan just finishing their tower. They stack four glasses on top of each at the top and begin pouring a HUGE bottle of champagne. It holds and they get their Pit Stop clue. They are satisfied with finishing the leg 5th.
Brent is frustrated but they get their tower stacked. He begins to pour the champagne but at the last minute, the glasses begin crashing to the floor. They had back outside to do Terra and it wasn’t that hard. Caite apologizes and they head to the Pit Stop for a 2nd time, this time to check in 6th.
Jeff & Jordan had seen Brent & Caite doing the grapes, so they decide to stack the glasses, but they crash before even getting a chance to pour so they head outside in the cold and darkness. They find a cluster (after Jeff misses it, but not the cameraman!) and the head to the Pit Stop, knowing they were last and eliminated.
Episode Thoughts
It was an interesting leg thanks to the locals (and TOURISM officials!) who gave the teams the wrong directions.
It is very funny though how many Amazing Race fans hate whenever there is a bunching point and teams catch up with each other or an Hours of Operation keeps teams waiting, yet now, at least for me, wish we had any one of those because for three legs now, if it wasn’t for the misdirection from the locals, we would’ve had another almost identical finish. That definitely takes away from the excitement of the show.
Thankfully, teams are flying to Seychelles next week and that probably means they’ll all be on the same flight so we may finally see a NEW Team #1. If only Joe & Heidi could Yield the now even more cocky detectives.
We got some beautiful shots of the French countryside though. Definitely stuff you see in storybooks.
And kudos to the champagne themed episode as we were in the Champagne region of France.
The Detour was pretty interesting too because this was probably the first time in a while (or ever) that the luck side of the Detour was a smarter choice than the skill side. The stacking of glasses is precarious enough, but the time it took for Dan & Jordan to do it as other teams easily passed them was crazy!
But it was an all right leg. Looking forward to next week though!
Oh! And after abandoning the idea last season, TAR has decided to reedit the opening credits with scenes of the teams in Race which is cool and fun.
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Adrian
