It smells of money

Épernay is regarded as the Capital of Champagne and L’Avenue de Champagne is the focal point of the town because many of the major champagne producers have their “houses” in the avenue.

Producers such as:

Moët and Chandon

Mercier

Pol Roger

De Castellane

De Venoge

Boizel 

Collard-Picard

The avenue was developed both above and below ground solely to facilitate the production of champagne. Merchants settled in the avenue in the late 18th century and built large production buildings and then from the 19th century stately residences and they are now the visible aspects of the avenue.

What is not seen however, unless one visits one of the “caves” is what has been created underground - over 110kms of chalk cellars storing over 200,000,000 (200 million) bottles of champagne creating an underground city and which some say makes the avenue the most valuable street in the world.

As for the town itself, you smell the wealth in the avenue but this hasn’t been shared with the rest of the town


Interestingly in Reims, around 25kms from Épernay, there are over 250kms of underground cellars containing around the same number of bottles for producers such as:

Taittinger 

Veuve-Clicquot 

Mumm

Pommery 

Kms driven today: 93