Villiers-aux-Corneilles

Location

Villiers-aux-Corneilles lies in the Marne département in the Grand Est region, in the arrondissement of Épernay and the canton of Vertus-Plaine Champenoise. If you know the famous champagne villages, you will find a different picture here: the village sits away from the great vineyard sites and is neither a grand cru nor a premier cru. At the start of 2023, 113 people lived here. The nearest Météo-France weather station is in Romilly-sur-Seine, about 7 kilometres away as the crow flies, and the commune falls within its catchment area.

Landscape and farming

The commune is classed as rural, with very scattered housing, and lies outside any urban unit. The land use figures are revealing: almost 90 per cent of the area is farmland, most of it arable (84.9 per cent). Woodland accounts for another 10.1 per cent, with the remainder mixed agricultural land. These proportions barely changed between 1990 and 2018. The available figures make no mention of viticulture. The village therefore stands more for the arable land of Champagne than for its vines.

“The annual mean for the period 1971 to 2000 was 10.6 °C, with average rainfall of 708 mm.

The area is drained by the stream of Potangis and Villiers, which belongs to the Seine catchment.

Climate

For anyone who thinks about champagne in terms of terroir, the climate is of interest. The commune has a temperate climate (Cfb in the Köppen-Geiger classification) with cool summers and no pronounced dry season. The annual mean for the period 1971 to 2000 was 10.6 °C, with average rainfall of 708 mm. The Romilly-sur-Seine station records a mean of 11.2 °C and 619.5 mm of rain for 1991 to 2020. The extremes there range from 42.3 °C on 25 July 2019 to minus 25.2 °C on 6 January 1971.

Name and commune

The place name tells us something about its origins. Around 1222 it is recorded as Vilers, derived from the Latin vilare, a hamlet in the orbit of a larger estate. In 1766 the spelling Viliers aux Corneilles appears, which points to the crows (corneilles) in the name.

Ayala Champagner Shop

• Département: Marne
• Canton: Vertus-Plaine Champenoise
• Arrondissement: Épernay
• Inhabitants: 113 (2023)

Two lists stood in the municipal election on 15 March 2026, with eleven seats on the municipal council to be filled. Valerie Biaudet Dine won with 54.12 per cent and was elected mayor on 20 March 2026.

For a trip to Champagne, Villiers-aux-Corneilles is not a destination with cellars and tastings. But it shows that, alongside the vine-covered slopes, the region also takes in wide stretches of farmland.