The day to book if you want the house and the people who farm the villages around it. You start with a guided cellar tour and tastings at Veuve Clicquot. Then you drive to Hautvillers, sit down to lunch at a family winery and finish at a second small producer. The house ticket, lunch and nine tastings are in your fare.
Admission, the cellar tour and the tastings at the house are all paid for.
At the house, over lunch and at the last family producer of the day.
A traditional lunch with the family's own champagne, included in your fare.
The hillside village where Dom Pérignon is buried, with the view over the Marne.
One guide and one air-conditioned minivan, so every question gets an answer.
The most-reviewed day that names the house, from Reims or Épernay.
You go to the house first, while the cellars are quiet. A house guide takes you down into the crayères, the chalk pits the house moved into in 1909 on the edge of Reims. UNESCO listed them with the rest of the Saint-Nicaise hill in 2015. Down there the wine rests at 10 to 12 °C, whatever the season. After about an hour and a half you come back up to taste. One traveller counted four cuvées at the house, and three more with lunch.
Comparing each Veuve Clicquot tour side by side before you book? This one is the shared day with the most reviews that names the house in its fare. Note one line in the listing: the house visit "may be replaced with a similar house if unavailable". The houses cap their visitor numbers, so book early for a summer Saturday.
From Reims the minibus crosses the vineyards to Hautvillers, above the Marne valley. You have about an hour there. Dom Pérignon was cellarer of the village's abbey from 1668 until he died in 1715. His tomb lies in the abbey church of Saint-Sindulphe, and the hillside gives you the photograph most people take home. Travellers in August and September have watched the harvest from the road, and guides stop so you can see the picking.
The afternoon belongs to the growers, the families who farm their own vines and make their own wine. You sit down to a traditional lunch at a family winery, with its champagne poured alongside. Then you visit a second small producer for a tour and a last tasting. The producers are the operator's choice on the date. Recent groups finished at P. Lancelot-Royer, whose chalk caves run under the family home, and at Champagne Salmon.
That contrast is the reason to book this day rather than the house alone. You see how the house works at scale in the morning, then meet the people who pour their own bottles after lunch. Both are in your fare, and you can buy bottles at the family producers.
You are in Reims or Épernay for the day, or you come in on an early TGV from Paris, and you want the house, the vineyards and lunch without driving. It suits couples, friends and small families on a first Champagne day, and anyone who would rather taste than plan.
You want to stay on board from Paris: the day with your TGV tickets in the fare includes lunch too, and the private half day from your Paris hotel drives you there and back. For your party alone, the private day with a boutique producer starts at the same station. For a lower fare on a Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday, the grower day with lunch from Reims station costs $375. Every shared and private day from the city sits on Veuve Clicquot tours from Reims.
You pick your start when you book. From Reims, meet your guide at 9:20 am in front of Reims Centre station, next to the tourist office on the Cour de la Gare. That is the small office on the station forecourt, not the main office by the cathedral. From Épernay, meet at 8:30 am in front of the tourist office at 7 avenue de Champagne. The day ends back where it began.
There is no pickup in Paris. The TGV reaches Reims from Paris in about 45 minutes, and travellers say the start fits the morning train. Arrive at Reims Centre, not Champagne-Ardenne TGV, which stands outside the city at Bezannes.
★★★★★
Veuve Clicquot, a family winery and lunch, from Reims
A birthday present that delivered: Veuve Clicquot first, then a smaller house for tasting and lunch, the church where Dom Pérignon is buried, and a family house with its own chalk caves under the home to finish.
Linda J. · Traveller · September 2025
★★★★★
Veuve Clicquot, a family winery and lunch, from Reims
The giant Veuve Clicquot first, then a paired four-course lunch at a smaller house and the harvest under way in the vines. The smaller the house, the closer and more informative the visit became.
Lizzy H. · Traveller · August 2025
★★★★★
Veuve Clicquot, a family winery and lunch, from Reims
They were picking grapes, and the guide stopped so we could get out and watch. Tasting the wine with lunch pulled the whole day together.
Judy W. · Traveller · September 2025
Check dates for the 9:20 am start in Reims or 8:30 am in Épernay, with free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
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