Valmy

Valmy is not a winemaking village, and you should know that before you go. It is neither grand cru nor premier cru, and the place barely features in champagne at all. Even so, it is worth a stop if you want to understand Champagne as a cultural landscape: history was written here, and the land tells a very different story from the rest of the region.

Location

Valmy lies about 40 kilometres east-north-east of Châlons-en-Champagne, in the Marne département. The village sits on the edge of the Argonne forest, on the eastern border of the Champagne crayeuse, the chalky Champagne. The landscape is hilly, and some of the rises top 150 metres. The village church stands on one, and the famous battle took place on another. Météo-France describes the climate as temperate oceanic with cool summers. The mean annual temperature is around 11 °C (Argers weather station, 1991 to 2020).

Fields instead of vines

Over 96 per cent of the commune's land is used for agriculture, almost all of it arable, mainly cereals. Valmy has 234 inhabitants (2023). Farmers from the village have brewed a beer called Valmy from barley grown on their own soil. A nice reminder for food and drink lovers that Champagne has more to offer than sparkling wine. Two service areas on the A4 motorway, which runs through the commune, bring in additional income.

“The present one originally comes from Attiches and was inaugurated on 20 September 1947, after the war had interrupted the work.

History

On 20 September 1792, during the War of the First Coalition, the Cannonade of Valmy took place here. The invading army withdrew from France as a result, and the following day the Republic was proclaimed in Paris. In the Second World War, the US Third Army under George S. Patton liberated the village on 30 August 1944. A tank near the battlefield commemorates this, for Valmy lies on the Voie de la Liberté. An early Resistance group, founded in 1940 by Raymond Burgard and René Iché, also bore the name Valmy.

Bruno Paillard Champagner

Sights

The landmark is the Valmy windmill. General Kellermann had the original destroyed on the evening of the battle, because it offered the enemy an ideal target. A second mill was sold and demolished in 1831. The present one originally comes from Attiches and was inaugurated on 20 September 1947, after the war had interrupted the work. In 1989 one of the celebrations for the bicentenary of the Revolution was held here, with President François Mitterrand and foreign heads of state in attendance.

• Valmy windmill on the battlefield
• Statues of General Kellermann and Francisco de Miranda, and a bust of Simón Bolívar
• Church of Saint-Maerin
• Chapel of Henriette Ginetti
• Museum of the battle

If you are driving from Châlons-en-Champagne towards the Argonne, it is best to combine your visit with a tasting among the vineyards further west. Valmy provides the historical backdrop.