Winery · Ambonnay

Ambonnay: The Pinot Noir Heart of Champagne

Egly-Ouriet: fourth-generation grower, 10 hectares across Ambonnay, Bouzy & Verzenay. Cult status for rich, textured Champagnes favored by Robert Parker.

What to do there

TourAmbonnay: From a 1582 Cross to a Chalk CellarIn 1578, the village says, King Henri III let Ambonnay ring itself with ditches and ramparts and trade in wine once a year, on St Luke's day; its cross of 1582 still stands on the old market place. Today four vines in five here are Pinot Noir, and it is one of Champagne's 17 Grand Cru villages. You can find the evangelists on that cross, read a church of the 12th and 13th centuries from outside, count the marks the village says a champagne bottle left on a jet's tailfin in 1969, taste for free at a family grower, climb to a viewpoint in the vines, and go down into a cellar its owners say was dug into the chalk in the 17th century.

Wineries nearby

Winery · Verzenay Verzenay: The Lighthouse of Champagne Joseph Goulet's 1909 concrete lighthouse (first in Champagne!)
Winery · Mareuil-sur-Aÿ Philipponnat
Winery · Mareuil-sur-Aÿ Billecart-Salmon Two and a half hours through 3km of underground chalk caves at 10C — max 10 people, only two tours per day.