Region & History

The Vallée de la Marne, the Marne Valley, is the part of Champagne where Meunier thrives, and Aÿ is its best-known village. Along the northern bank of the river, around Épernay, Cumières, Hautvillers, Dizy, Aÿ and Mareuil-sur-Ay line up one after another, each with its own growers and houses.

Several men came from Germany to found Champagne houses here. Joseph Jacob Placid Bollinger from Ellwangen opened the house of Bollinger in Aÿ on 6 February 1829, and it remains in the Bollinger family to this day. Deutz followed in 1838, founded by William Deutz and Peter-Joseph-Hubert Geldermann of Aachen.

From this founding a line runs all the way to Breisach on the Rhine: the sparkling wine producer Geldermann traces back to the house of Deutz & Geldermann in Aÿ and has belonged to Rotkäppchen-Mumm since 2003. Johann-Joseph Krug from Mainz built his house in Reims in 1843, so outside the valley, yet he belongs to the same story of German émigrés.

Billecart-Salmon was founded in 1818 in Mareuil-sur-Ay when Nicolas François Billecart married Elisabeth Salmon, and it remains family-owned to this day. Jacquesson was founded in Châlons in 1798, is now based in Dizy, and calls itself the oldest independent maison in Champagne.

What may be called Champagne is governed by the AOC Champagne appellation. The boundaries were drawn by the law of 6 May 1919, and the 1936 decree turned this into the appellation. Aÿ and Tours-sur-Marne are Grand Cru communes, while Cumières, Dizy, Hautvillers and Mareuil-sur-Ay hold Premier Cru status. These rankings apply to entire communes, not individual vineyards.

Across Champagne as a whole, 16,200 growers farm 90 percent of the vineyard area, while 370 houses ship more than two-thirds of the volume (2023 figures). The wine journey tells the story of the 1911 uprising, which also struck Aÿ.