Aulnay-sur-Marne

Location

Aulnay-sur-Marne lies in the Marne département in the Grand Est region. The village sits where the Somme-Soude flows into the Marne, around 14 kilometres north-west of Châlons-en-Champagne. The commune covers 9.03 square kilometres and had exactly 279 inhabitants in 2023. It is a rural commune with scattered buildings and falls within the catchment area of Châlons-en-Champagne. Administratively, it is part of the Cités-en-Champagne agglomeration.

Water shapes the place. The Marne runs through here, and the Somme-Soude, at 60 kilometres long, is a considerable tributary. It rises near Sommesous and, after passing through 18 communes, reaches the Marne at Aigny. There are also small canals and two bodies of still water, the Petits Bans and the Pré d'Osier.

Name and history

The village name points to the alder: it derives from the Latin alnetum, an alder wood on damp ground. In the 9th century the place appears as "Villa quae vocatur Alnidus". The area had been settled long before that, though. Excavations in 1964 and 1965 uncovered 33 graves from the 4th century.

“The commune covers 9.03 square kilometres and had exactly 279 inhabitants in 2023.

Landscape, climate and wine

The land is clearly agricultural. Over 82 per cent of the area is farmland, most of it arable. Woodland makes up a good 9 per cent. Vines do not appear in this breakdown, so Aulnay-sur-Marne is not a wine-growing village in the strict sense and carries no Grand Cru or Premier Cru classification. Even so, as a destination close to the winemaking villages along the Marne and the Montagne de Reims, it is easy to fit into a trip.

Of interest to wine lovers are the climate figures from the nearest Météo-France weather station at Bouzy, 9 kilometres away and well known as a grand cru village:

Tours-sur-Marne in der ChampagneFoto: Roland45, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

• Mean annual temperature 1991 to 2020: 11.5 °C
• Annual rainfall: about 687 millimetres
• Record high: 41.2 °C on 25 July 2019
• Record low: minus 20.5 °C on 16 January 1985

The range shows how much heat and frost the region has to endure, and with it the vines of the surrounding area.

What to see

The most important building is the church of Saint-Rémy. It contains several protected furnishings:

• a painting of Saint Apollonia from the 18th century
• the high altar with its retable and two statues from the 18th century
• a statue of Saint Nicholas from the 15th century
• a Eucharistic monument from the 16th century, which stands against the teaching of Luther

If you are on the road to Châlons-en-Champagne, you will find a quiet stop by the river here, with no cellar tours but plenty of champagne hinterland.