A Reims Champagne tour can be done almost entirely on foot. Veuve Clicquot, Taittinger, Ruinart and Pommery all keep their cellars in the chalk of the Saint-Nicaise hill, a short walk from one another, and each sells its own cellar visits, from €30 for a self-guided walk at Pommery. These eight options cover the four houses, booked directly or as part of a guided day with a driver.
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In this article
How we chose each Reims Champagne tour
We started from the visits the four houses sell themselves, read on their own booking pages, and picked for each one the visit that gives the best first look at the cellars. Booking direct is the cheapest way in, and it is the only way to get the house’s own guide and choose exactly which cuvées you taste. Those four come first, and none of them earns us anything.
Then we searched GetYourGuide, Viator and Winedering for guided tours that actually include one of the four houses, not just a drive past the gates. We kept four: one small-group day from Reims for each style of trip, and two private days from Paris that pair two of the houses. Every entry below has the same eight facts in the same order, so you can compare a 45-minute tasting with a full day out at a glance.
The crayères under these houses are Gallo-Roman chalk quarries, and they are part of the Champagne Hillsides, Houses and Cellars UNESCO World Heritage site, inscribed in 2015. That is the real reason to go underground in Reims rather than in any other wine town: the cellars here are older than the wine.
The four houses, booked directly
Each house runs its own ticketing, in euros, with timed slots. In summer and around the harvest the popular slots go weeks ahead, so book these first and build the rest of the day around them.
1. Veuve Clicquot: The Art of Blending Rosé
Why it’s on the list. It is the shortest and cheapest way into the Veuve Clicquot crayères, and it is built around the house’s best story: Madame Clicquot is credited with the first blended rosé Champagne, made by adding still red wine to white before the second fermentation. The visit walks the cellars and ends with two cuvées.
If one hour feels short, the house sells three longer visits: Only One Quality, the Finest (90 minutes, four wines, €80), The Art of Aging (two hours, four wines, €160) and a tasting of La Grande Dame, the prestige cuvée (€260). For a first visit the rosé tour is enough; the aging visit is the one for people who already know the yellow label well.
Good to know
Check dates on veuveclicquot.com →
2. Taittinger: L’Instant Rosé
Why it’s on the list. Taittinger is the best value of the four. Its cellars run under the hill of Saint-Nicaise and still hold the remains of the 13th-century abbey that stood above them, and the entry visit costs €40. The site reopened after a full renovation, with a new central bar where this visit ends on Brut Réserve and Prestige Rosé.
Taittinger is also a family house in the way the others no longer are, and the longer visits show it. L’Instant Signé (1 hour 45 minutes, €90) adds Prélude Grands Crus and Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs, the wine the house is known for. L’Instant Gourmet (90 minutes, €80) pairs two cuvées with small dishes by chef Philippe Mille. If you only do one long tasting in Reims, the Comtes visit is the one we would pick.
Good to know
Check dates on taittinger.fr →
3. Ruinart: Visit of the Crayères
Why it’s on the list. Ruinart, founded in 1729, calls itself the first Champagne house, and its crayères are the most striking of the four: around twenty chalk chambers on two levels, about 40 meters down, with eight kilometers of galleries. Ruinart was also the first house in Reims to age its wine in them. The visit is small, twelve places, and ends with two cuvées.
It is the most expensive entry visit here, and it is honest about why: the group is small and the setting is the best in town, with a contemporary art collection along the route. Chardonnay drinkers should look at Chardonnay Signature (two hours, three cuvées, €110), since Blanc de Blancs is the house style. On Fridays and Saturdays Ruinart also serves a four-course lunch with two glasses (€150), which turns the visit into a long afternoon.
Good to know
4. Pommery: The Genius of Madame Pommery
Why it’s on the list. Pommery is the most theatrical of the four. The estate covers 50 hectares, you walk down a staircase of 116 steps into 18 kilometers of cellars, and the galleries host contemporary art shows. This guided visit tells the story of Louise Pommery, the widow who ran the house in the 19th century, and ends with two tastings.
Pommery is also the most flexible. If two hours is too long, a 45-minute guided tour of the cellars costs €38, and self-guided visits start at €30, which makes it the easiest of the four to fit around another booking. The house has welcomed visitors since 1878, and it shows: of the four, it is the one most at ease with first-timers and families.
Good to know
Check dates on maisonpommery.com →
Book it
Rather have a guide, a driver and a grower included?
Every Champagne house tour around Reims, filtered and ready.
Reims Champagne tours with a guide and a driver
Booking the houses yourself is cheaper, but it leaves you in town. The tours below add what Reims alone cannot give: a family grower in the vineyards, a village like Hautvillers, and someone else driving after nine glasses. Two run from Reims in small groups; two are private days from Paris with hotel pickup.
5. Veuve Clicquot and a Family Grower, With Lunch
Why it’s on the list. This is the most reviewed day on the list and the best way to compare a great house with a small one on the same day. You start with a guided visit of the Veuve Clicquot cellars and four cuvées, stop in Hautvillers where Dom Pérignon is buried, then have lunch at a family-owned estate and visit a second small producer. Nine glasses in all.
Two caveats. The operator says it may swap Veuve Clicquot for another famous house if slots are full, so book early if this house is the point of your trip. And the cancellation window is a week, not a day. You can start in Reims, by the tourist office at the main station, or in Épernay an hour earlier.
Good to know
6. Pommery, the Cathedral and Hautvillers in a Small Group
Why it’s on the list. It is the only small-group day from Reims built around Pommery, and the guide is a certified French national monument guide, which matters for the second stop: Notre-Dame de Reims, where the kings of France were crowned. The day starts with a two-hour Pommery cellar visit, then the cathedral, Hautvillers, the Avenue de Champagne in Épernay and a boutique producer.
Lunch is not included: you get free time in Épernay and restaurant suggestions. It suits people who want history with their Champagne, and every one of its reviews so far is five stars, though there are only 25 of them.
Good to know
7. Private Day From Paris: Taittinger and Pommery
Why it’s on the list. It is the only bookable trip we found that puts Taittinger on the program by name, and it pairs it with Pommery, its neighbor on the hill. Pickup is at your Paris hotel at 7:30; the morning is a guided Taittinger cellar visit with tastings, then a stop at the cathedral, then Pommery in the afternoon.
The limit is honest: it has no reviews yet, although the operator runs the Ruinart trip below. It is a long day for two cellars, and if you are happy on the train, the two houses booked directly cost a fraction of this. It makes sense for a couple or a family who want a driver door to door.
Good to know
8. Private Day From Paris: Ruinart and Veuve Clicquot
Why it’s on the list. Two of the four houses, the oldest and the most famous, in one private day. You reach Ruinart at 10:00 for the two-hour crayères visit, have lunch in Reims (the driver can book a table), then go on to Veuve Clicquot. It is the most expensive option here, and the one for a special occasion.
Only three reviews so far, all five stars, which is too few to lean on. Since the Ruinart visit is the same one the house sells for €90, the premium pays for the car, the timing and not having to think. If you are already staying in Reims, book the two houses yourself and walk between them.
Good to know
Which Reims Champagne tour to choose
If you have one afternoon, book Taittinger and Pommery: together they cost less than a single Ruinart visit, they sit close together on the same hill, and they show two opposite characters, a quiet family house and a grand estate built to impress. If you have a whole day in Reims, add Ruinart in the morning and keep Veuve Clicquot for a second trip, or swap it in for Pommery if the yellow label is the bottle you drink at home.
Two cellars a day is the sensible limit. Each visit ends with at least two glasses, and the chalk galleries are cold and long; after the third, the houses start to blur. If you want variety rather than more big names, mix one house with a grower, which is what the guided days above do, and what our wider guide to Champagne houses to visit in Reims and Épernay is built around.
Booking, timing and walking between the houses
All four houses are on or beside the Saint-Nicaise hill in the southeast of Reims, within a short walk of one another. From the cathedral it is roughly half an hour on foot, or a few minutes by bus or taxi; Ruinart has its own bus stop, Crayère. Allow at least 30 minutes between two bookings, because visits end in the shop and nobody hurries you out.
Book the houses as soon as your dates are fixed, especially for weekends, the summer and September, when the harvest brings crowds. Every cellar sits at 10 to 12 °C (50 to 54 °F) all year, so bring a layer even in July, and flat shoes for the steps: Pommery’s staircase alone has 116. Reims is about 45 minutes from Paris by TGV, which makes a day trip easy without a tour.
Do not plan to drive between tastings. The French limit is 0.5 grams of alcohol per liter of blood, lower than the 0.08% common in the US, and two cellar visits will take most people over it. Walk in Reims, and leave the vineyard villages to a guided day or to a designated driver.
Where this fits in a Champagne trip
Reims is one half of a Champagne visit; Épernay, half an hour south, is the other. A good two-day plan is Reims and its houses on the first day and the Avenue de Champagne on the second, starting with a Moët and Chandon tour. Our Champagne region guide covers the wine areas in between, and the Comité Champagne publishes the official background on the appellation.
To sleep close to the cellars, see our pick of hotels in Épernay and Reims. If you would rather base yourself in Paris and let someone else plan the day, start with our Champagne tours from Paris, and if you plan to drive the villages, read our guide to renting a car for a wine trip first.
Prices here are per person unless stated. The houses list their own visits in euros; GetYourGuide and Viator convert into your currency at checkout. Prices are indicative and set by our booking partners.
Getting around
Staying in Champagne for more than just today? A rental car makes it easy to reach the growers in the villages at your own pace.
Rent a car from Reims, filtered and ready.
