Champagne Wine Tour: Self-Guided GPS Audio Guide from Reims
- 4–9 hours
- Free cancellation up to 24h before
- 2 languages
- Instant confirmation
Highlights
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.
Inclusions
What's included
- Email and in-app chat support
- Trip planner to build, reorder and save your own route
- Buy once, no expiry: use it on this trip and every future trip
- Complete offline download: audio, maps and route stored on your phone
- 68 mapped champagne houses and growers across Reims, the Montagne de Reims, Aÿ, Épernay and the Côte des Blancs
- In-app map with navigation between stops
- Narrated stories on Gosset, Moët, Mercier, Ayala, the Grand Cru villages and the chalk crayères
- Free content and audio updates for life
- One purchase covers everyone in the vehicle
- GPS-triggered audio driving tour of Champagne: stories play automatically at each location
What's not
- Cellar visits and tasting fees (paid directly at each house)
- Visit reservations, where required
- Food, meals and snacks
- Transport: rental car, fuel, parking or driver
- Mobile data used to download the tour (download over wifi and it is free)
- Museum entry at the Phare de Verzenay and other paid attractions
Itinerary
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.
Reims house whose cellars occupy Gallo-Roman chalk pits beneath the site of the former Saint-Nicaise abbey; visits by reservation.
Reims house founded in 1772 and made famous by Barbe-Nicole Clicquot, the widow who ran it from 1805; visits by reservation.
Founded in Reims in 1729, the oldest champagne house, with UNESCO-listed chalk crayeres beneath it; visits by reservation.
Reims domaine of Madame Pommery, built above kilometres of Gallo-Roman chalk cellars; visits by reservation.
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.
One of the seventeen Grand Cru villages, on the northern face of the Montagne de Reims, home to the Mailly Grand Cru growers cooperative.
Hilltop village above the Marne where Dom Perignon was cellarer of the Benedictine abbey; his tomb is in the abbey church.
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.
Ay grower whose Hemart ancestors first appear in the parish register in 1625, still farming the same Grand Cru slope.
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.
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.
Cancellation
Free cancellation up to 24 hours before the experience starts, for a full refund.
Know before you go
- Meeting point
- These are self-guided wine tours, so these are just where a user can drive in from. The user can start from wherever they are at.
- Pickup
- Everyone meets at the starting point; there is no pickup.
- Ticket type
- Mobile or paper ticket accepted
- Operated by
- Wine Trails
- Infants and small children can ride in a pram or stroller
- Service animals allowed
- Suitable for all physical fitness levels
- By giving your phone number you agree to receive up to 2 texts from Wine Trails about this booking (your tour link and a tour-day reminder)
- Msg & data rates may apply. Msg frequency: max 2 texts per booking. Reply STOP to opt out, HELP for help
- Before you travel: download the free Wine Trails app (iOS or Android) and create your account while you are on wifi
- Unlock your region in the app: tap Redeem a booking or code, choose Booked online, then enter your Viator booking reference (starts with BR-) and the last name on the booking
- Download your tour over wifi before you drive: coverage in wine country is patchy and the offline download keeps the narration playing
How it compares in Reims
- Its from-price is 95% below the median of the 45 day trips we list in Reims.
- Its length is typical for the group.
- The operator lists free cancellation on it.
About Reims
Reims, the city of Champagne, is known for the cathedral where French kings were crowned and for the chalk cellars beneath its champagne houses.
Reims Cathedral, a Gothic masterpiece of the thirteenth century, was the coronation church of most French kings, and its façade is covered in statues, including the Smiling Angel. Inside, stained-glass windows by Marc Chagall glow in the apse. Beside it, the Palais du Tau, the former archbishop's palace, holds treasures from the coronations, and the Basilica of Saint-Remi shows earlier Romanesque and Gothic work.
Top-ranked sights in Reims: Reims Cathedral of Notre Dame (Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Reims), Pommery Champagne (Domaine Pommery), House of Mumm (Maison Mumm).
Special offers in Reims
Was/now prices come from the operator, never from us.
Similar experiences
Likely to sell outFree cancellation
Likely to sell outFree cancellation![Verdun Battlefield Tour, Expert Historian & Tickets Included]()
Likely to sell outFree cancellation
