Vézilly

Location

Vézilly lies in the Aisne département, in the Hauts-de-France region, right on the border with the Marne département. Château-Thierry is about 25 kilometres away, and the centre of Reims about 26 kilometres. Anyone travelling through the Champagne region between the Marne valley and Reims will almost inevitably pass close by.

The commune has 181 inhabitants (2023) and is classed as rural, with scattered buildings. It includes the hamlets of Le Vieux Vézilly and Vieux Vendôme. Statistically it belongs to the Reims catchment area. Administratively it falls under the Communauté d'agglomération de la Région de Château-Thierry and the canton of Fère-en-Tardenois.

Landscape and climate

The Ruisseau de Semoigne flows through the commune and joins the Semoigne in the neighbouring commune to the south. In the south, the line of the LGV Est européenne high-speed railway touches the commune's boundary. The neighbouring communes are:

• Arcis-le-Ponsart to the north
• Lagery and Aougny to the east
• Villers-Agron-Aiguizy and Goussancourt to the south
• Coulonges-Cohan to the west

Land use is clearly defined: 41.6 per cent is forest, 39.4 per cent arable land, 10.6 per cent mixed farmland and 8.4 per cent meadow (2018). Vineyards do not appear in this breakdown at all. Vézilly is therefore not a winegrowing village in the classic sense.

“There, the annual mean for 1991 to 2020 was 10.7 °C, with 734 millimetres of rainfall.

The climate is temperate, Cfb in the Köppen-Geiger classification, meaning fresh summers and no dry season. The nearest Météo-France weather station is in Chambrecy, about 10 kilometres away. There, the annual mean for 1991 to 2020 was 10.7 °C, with 734 millimetres of rainfall. The extremes: 40.3 °C on 25 July 2019 and minus 22.1 °C on 17 January 1985.

Name and church

The name of the village has come down to us in several spellings, including Vezilli (1285), Veselly (1485) and Vesilly (1585). The sources name the church of Notre-Dame as the main sight. Archaeological test digs near the choir in 2008 uncovered layers from the 16th and 17th centuries.

Chateau de Bligny Champagner

What it means for champagne lovers

Vézilly has neither grand cru nor premier cru status, and the sources available to me mention no champagne houses or growers in the village itself. It is therefore less a destination for tastings than a stop on a drive through the hinterland between Château-Thierry and Reims. If you carry on from here to the better-known wine villages of the Marne, you experience the shift from forest and fields to the vine-covered slopes at first hand.

A practical note for planning your trip: arrange tastings in the larger villages and towns nearby. Vézilly itself offers peace, countryside and a small village church.