Épernay Things to Do

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The champagne and tour at Champagne Mercier was quite pleasant. The champagne house has a long history that they are happy to share with all that visit.

The tour includes an audio-visual portion and then a ride on a guided tram through the cellar and caves and ends with a champagne tasting.

One of the coolest things was the story of the giant barrel, which holds 200,000 bottles of wine. It took over 10 years to build and was actually transported to the Paris Exposition in 1899. It was one of the biggest draws, with the exception of Gustave Eiffel's Tower.

Very nice tour and delicious champagne. Worth a visit.

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Moet et Chandon is a popular champagne and a beautiful champagne house. Before you even enter the Champagne House, a quick picture with Dom Perignon, Whether or not he was the first to make champagne, the words attributed to him "Brothers, I am drinking stars" is enough to peek my interest.

Tours are available in French and English and consist of a walk through the house and the caves followed by tastings. The tour lasts about an hour and is quite informative.

Open daily. Tour prices run from Euro 15 to 28 depending on the amount and type of tasting you're interested in.

Definitely worth a visit.

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This tour was nice and started a short movie and then an elevator ride downstairs that took 4-5 minutes, not because it was a long way but because they had a diarama to view on the way down(cheesey). When you get off the elevator the put you on a tram that is laser guided so you cant take flash pictures out the front of the tram or it will crash into all the bottles. There is some walking but not much and there is an elevator to take you back to the top. Lots of chalk carvings and some good things to see with a lot of information.

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This was an all walking tour, no elevator but very easy only about 30 steps up and down. This tour they showed us the actuall bottling machines along with a lot of history. There is a lot more mold in these tunnels than the other houses.

This area of France, it's all about wine and champagne.
Here you can find the best wines and champagne of France.

At the tourist office you will find perfect information for you in order to find out which vineyards you can visit and make a tour.

In the area there are many places to visit if you are interested in the Champagne making, how they do it etc...

At the touristic office you can find all the information you need, directions, best places, maps etc.. all that for free.

Great service and nice people.

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While visiting the town, don't miss the HQ of the famous Champagne company Moet et Chandon.

There's a great guided tour in their chellars (a total of 29 km of chellars, but you'll see the essential), they will tell you the story of the company, the key persons and how they make the fabulous champagne well known everywhere.

The entrance fee for the guided tour is EUR. 13.00
Then at the end of the tour, don't miss the champagne tasting offered by the house and have a look at the shop inside.

The company has first estabilished back in the 1743 by Claude Moet and quickly the simpathy of a lot of the important people of the era, such as Napoleon I Bonaparte.
M&C was also the official producer of champagne for the King Charles VII.

We went to Nicolas Feuillatte at Chouilly nearby to Epernay.

The "factory" is much more modern than the traditional houses in the centre of Epernay and Reims.

The tour was led by a member of staff aided by an audio visual show at the various points around the public access areas. Amazing to see the ages old traditions turne don their heads.

For non-champagne experts, like us, the difference in taste and the wine was unoticable.