Acy-Romance

Acy-Romance is not a champagne village in the strict sense, and it holds neither grand cru nor premier cru status. For travellers exploring Champagne from the north, though, it makes an interesting stop with an unusually long history.

Location

The village lies in the Ardennes département in the Grand Est region and borders Rethel, the sub-prefecture of the area, directly to the west and south-west. It is about 35 kilometres to Reims and roughly 40 kilometres as the crow flies to Charleville-Mézières. To the north the Aisne flows past the commune, and the Ardennes Canal crosses its northern part for a good two kilometres. To the east the Route nationale 51 forms the boundary. As of 1 January 2023 the commune had 479 inhabitants. Administratively it belongs to the arrondissement and canton of Rethel.

Farmland rather than vineyards

Vines play no discernible role in Acy-Romance. Around 93 per cent of the commune's land is used for agriculture, the largest share of it arable fields at a good 81 per cent, with meadows and pasture making up the rest. The climate is temperate oceanic, with cool summers and cold winters. At the nearest weather station, in Juniville, the annual mean is about 10.8 °C and annual rainfall around 700 millimetres. If you are looking for champagne, you will find it rather in Reims and the surrounding area; the village serves as a quiet base.

“In 1752 Louis XV raised the estate to a marquisate and gave it the family's name.

History

The prehistory here is remarkable. Aerial photographs revealed a site on the plateau in 1979, and it was excavated from 1983 to 2003, among others under the direction of Bernard Lambot. The archaeologists found:

• a settlement and a necropolis with numerous graves
• three sanctuaries
• pottery, tools, weapons and other artefacts

The site was inhabited from the late Bronze Age into the early 2nd century. The burial customs point to a sacrificial ritual in which twenty people were mummified.

Chartogne Taillet Champagne

The lordship of Acy is documented from the 12th century, and in the 17th century it partly belonged to the Colbert family. In 1750 Hugues-Étienne de Romance bought the lordship. In 1752 Louis XV raised the estate to a marquisate and gave it the family's name. The château, which once held a rich library and works of art, was destroyed by the Revolution. The name changed several times: after a return to Acy in 1831, a decree of 3 April 1962 finally made the present name, Acy-Romance, official.

Sights

The main building of note is the church of Saint-Pierre. Anyone interested in archaeology and regional history can easily combine a visit with a detour to Rethel and continue from there towards Reims.