Champagne is an hour from Paris, and there are a hundred ways to spend a day there. Some clients want the great houses and the cellars under Reims, others want a grower pouring in her own cellar, and most want a little of both. I have been taking clients there since 2017, and the best days are built around what you love to drink, with a long lunch and time to look at the vines. This is how we plan them.
Two ways to do Champagne with us
Guided day
We are with you all day
1,100 € per person
- One of our team beside you, from your train or hotel to the last cellar
- Producer visits across estates of every size
- Lunch worth the region, and the context behind every glass
- Transport and standard tastings included
Private, for two to six guests, full days only. Lunch and premium tastings are separate.
Designed day
We write it, you live it
750 € for the design
- We plan the whole day and book your producers and lunch
- A private driver meets your train and takes you door to door
- Every visit chosen with the same care as if we were there
- Exactly which trains to book from Paris
No guide with you on the day. Your driver and tastings are settled directly on the ground.
Many clients do Champagne as a day trip from Paris, and many stay a night in Reims or Épernay to slow it down. Both work beautifully.
The region, honestly
Champagne makes the most sense when you treat it as farming. The famous houses of Reims and the Avenue de Champagne make most of the Champagne the world drinks, but the vineyards themselves are farmed overwhelmingly by families, thousands of growers tending their own slopes of chalk. The two worlds depend on each other, and a great day holds both: the cathedral cellars in the morning, a working cellar in the afternoon, where the contrast is the lesson.
We work with estates of every size, from the storied maisons to family houses to growers who pour at their own kitchen table. Some of our favorite afternoons end on a terrace above the Vallée de la Marne with the valley spread out below the vines. Most of Champagne is open to anyone with a reservation. Some of it is not, and that is where our work shows. We can sometimes open doors that are not easy to open on your own, and we create small grower experiences that are hard to find, the kind that never appear on a booking site. The difference is design: which visits, in which order, at which pace, so you experience Champagne as a guest rather than a tourist.
Celebration and scars
Champagne pours at every celebration on earth, and the region itself carries a much heavier story. There are red crosses still painted on chalk cellar walls where whole communities lived through the First World War, with classrooms and hospitals underground while the vineyards above were a front line. In 1911 growers rioted when cheap grapes were shipped up from the south, pulling them off the trains at Damery and throwing them into the Marne, and that fight is part of why the rules protecting Champagne exist at all. In Reims cathedral, where the kings of France were crowned, Chagall windows now glow in a building that was once bombed to its shell. We tell these stories on the road between visits because they change how the wine tastes. Celebration means more when you know what it survived.
Designed around the sub regions
Champagne is not one landscape, and we build your days around its parts: the Montagne de Reims for Pinot Noir and the grand villages, the Vallée de la Marne for Meunier, river views and our favorite terraces, the Cote des Blancs for Chardonnay at its most chalk driven, and quiet corners like the Sezannais that most visitors never reach. Tell us what you drink at home and we will tell you which slopes your day should climb. Somewhere in the day we always stop at a lookout above the vines, because the landscape explains Champagne before anyone pours a glass.
Beyond the tasting room
For clients who want to go further we arrange what takes planning rather than luck: cellar time with the winemaker, visits during harvest when the region is alive, the right grande maison reserved early enough to actually happen, a table at the addresses worth planning an evening around, and that last glass on a terrace above the Marne. We know which hotels suit which trip, and we point you right. We are wine people, not a travel agency, and everything we design runs through the wine.
Who you are working with
Emily Erin is a sommelier, French Wine Scholar, and Bourgogne Master Level graduate who teaches at the Burgundy School of Business and writes everything you read on this site. Nicolas Fouilleroux is a WSET Diploma holder and certified educator who studied to Stage 2 of the Master of Wine programme, an ambassador for the wines of Provence, and came to wine after fifteen years in classical music. When we are not guiding ourselves, your day is led by one of a small circle of seasoned bilingual wine professionals we trust with our own clients.
People come to us for the trips that matter: a 50th birthday, an anniversary, a retirement celebrated properly with bubbles. Tell us the occasion and we will build the day around it.
Questions we hear every week
Can we do Champagne as a day trip from Paris?
Yes, and it is the most common trip we design. The train reaches Reims in about 45 minutes and Epernay in under an hour and a half. Your driver meets the platform, and you are in a cellar by mid morning. We wrote a full guide on how to visit Champagne from Paris.
Do we need a car?
No. Between the trains and the private driver on designed and guided days, nobody in your party needs to stay sober for the road or navigate vineyard lanes after tastings.
Should we visit the famous houses or the small growers?
Both, and the contrast is the point. The grandes maisons are spectacular and book out months ahead, so we reserve early. The family estates are where Champagne becomes personal, and the craft is matching the right ones to your taste rather than the ones with the biggest parking lot. Our days usually pair the two.
When should we come, and what about harvest?
Late spring through fall is lovely. Harvest, usually late August into September, is the most exciting time and the trickiest, because producers are working. We plan around it carefully, and some of our favorite visits happen then.
How far ahead should we book?
Two to six months for most dates, longer if a specific famous house matters to you. We are already booking spring 2027.
Start the conversation
Tell us your dates and your occasion and we will reply personally. If you are still shaping the trip, book a consultation and we will think it through with you, or read about our full travel design if Champagne is one stop of several.
