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Offered languages
- English
Drive Champagne yourself, with a GPS audio guide that plays automatically as you go. Your booking unlocks the whole region in the free Wine Trails app: pick your date and starting point, Reims, Épernay or Aÿ, choose the houses and growers you want from the 68 mapped across the Montagne de Reims, the Marne and the Côte des Blancs, and the app builds your personal route with turn-by-turn narration. Narrated stories cover the people behind the bottles: you'll hear how Pierre Gosset pressed still wine in Aÿ in 1584 before champagne learned to sparkle, how Jean-Rémy Moët's friendship with Napoleon carried Épernay across Europe, and why Eugène Mercier hauled a 200,000-bottle barrel to the 1889 World's Fair. No group, no schedule, no guide; pause for a long lunch, replay anything, and the audio keeps working when the signal drops, because everything downloads offline. You'll need a car and a designated driver; cellar visits are booked and paid directly with the houses.
What's Included
Meeting and pickup
Itinerary
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1Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Reims
The coronation cathedral of the French kings and the natural starting point for the drive; the crayeres of the great houses lie a short way south of it.
30 minutes • Admission ticket free -
2Champagne Taittinger
Reims house whose cellars occupy Gallo-Roman chalk pits beneath the site of the former Saint-Nicaise abbey; visits by reservation.
1 hour • Admission ticket free -
3Veuve Clicquot
Reims house founded in 1772 and made famous by Barbe-Nicole Clicquot, the widow who ran it from 1805; visits by reservation.
1 hour • Admission ticket free -
4Maison Ruinart
Founded in Reims in 1729, the oldest champagne house, with UNESCO-listed chalk crayeres beneath it; visits by reservation.
1 hour • Admission ticket free -
5Vranken Pommery
Reims domaine of Madame Pommery, built above kilometres of Gallo-Roman chalk cellars; visits by reservation.
45 minutes • Admission ticket free -
6Le Phare de Vezernay
A 1909 lighthouse raised above the Grand Cru vines of Verzenay as an advertisement, now a wine museum with views across the Montagne de Reims.
30 minutes • Admission ticket free -
7Mailly-Champagne
One of the seventeen Grand Cru villages, on the northern face of the Montagne de Reims, home to the Mailly Grand Cru growers cooperative.
45 minutes • Admission ticket free -
8Hautvillers
Hilltop village above the Marne where Dom Perignon was cellarer of the Benedictine abbey; his tomb is in the abbey church.
30 minutes • Admission ticket free -
9Champagne AYALA
Founded in 1860 by Edmond de Ayala, son of a Colombian diplomat, after his marriage brought him the Chateau d'Ay; a pioneer of drier champagne from 1865.
1 hour • Admission ticket free -
10Champagne Henri Giraud
Ay grower whose Hemart ancestors first appear in the parish register in 1625, still farming the same Grand Cru slope.
45 minutes • Admission ticket free -
11Avenue de Champagne
The grand address of the houses, UNESCO-listed since 2015: Moet & Chandon, Mercier, de Venoge at number 33, Boizel and Comtesse Lafond along one street.
30 minutes • Admission ticket free -
12Mercier
Eugene Mercier founded the house in 1858 at twenty and sent a 200,000-bottle barrel to the 1889 Paris World's Fair; a train tours the cellars.
1 hour • Admission ticket free -
13De Venoge
Epernay house founded in 1837 by Henri-Marc de Venoge from the Swiss canton of Vaud; the blue Cordon Bleu ribbon on the neck dates from 1851.
45 minutes • Admission ticket free -
14Champagne Comtesse Lafond
Chateau at the top of the Avenue de Champagne named for the countess in its salon portrait by Winterhalter; the de Ladoucette family of Pouilly-Fume behind it.
45 minutes • Admission ticket free -
15Champagne Boizel - Atelier 1834
Founded in 1834 by two pastry chefs, Auguste Boizel and Julie Martin; six generations on, the Roques-Boizel family still runs it.
45 minutes • Admission ticket free -
16Nicolas Feuillatte
Chouilly cooperative on the Cote des Blancs; coffee importer Nicolas Feuillatte launched the brand in 1976 and sold it to the growers' cooperative in 1986.
1 hour • Admission ticket free
Additional info
- Infants and small children can ride in a pram or stroller
- Service animals allowed
- Suitable for all physical fitness levels
Tags
Cancellation Policy
For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.
Cancellation Policy
- For a full refund, you must cancel at least 24 hours before the experience’s start time.
- If you cancel less than 24 hours before the experience’s start time, the amount you paid will not be refunded.
- Any changes made less than 24 hours before the experience’s start time will not be accepted.
You can cancel up to 24 hours in advance of the experience for a full refund.
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