Épernay

Geography

Épernay sits at the southern edge of the Marne valley, where the Montagne de Reims to the north, the Vallée de la Marne to the west, and the Côte des Blancs to the south meet. The town is about 25 km south of Reims.

Avenue de Champagne

Épernay's main artery, the Avenue de Champagne, concentrates an extraordinary number of historic maisons along a single kilometre: Moët & Chandon, Pol Roger, Perrier-Jouët, Boizel, de Venoge and others. Beneath the avenue lie more than 100 km of cellar galleries, carved into the same Campanian chalk that defines the region's terroir.

Why it matters

Épernay is the operational centre of several of the largest champagne houses by volume, and its cellars hold the bulk of the region's long-aged reserve wines. The Avenue de Champagne is part of the UNESCO inscription "hillsides, houses and cellars of Champagne" (2015).

Notable villages nearby

Hautvillers, the village where Dom Pérignon was cellarer, sits on the hillside immediately north-west of Épernay. Aÿ, across the Marne, is home to Bollinger and Deutz; Le Mesnil-sur-Oger and the grand cru villages of the Côte des Blancs stretch due south.