Vroil

Location

Vroil lies in the Marne département, right on the edge of the Grand Est region towards the Meuse. The village sits directly on the border with the neighbouring département, 26 kilometres north of Saint-Dizier and 23 kilometres west of Bar-le-Duc. With 103 inhabitants (2023) and just over ten square kilometres of land, Vroil is a very small commune. The statistics classify it as a rural commune with scattered settlement, outside any urban area.

Landscape and climate

The Chée flows through the commune. The 69-kilometre river rises near Seigneulles and joins the Saulx at Vitry-en-Perthois. The gauging station that records its flow is in Vroil. On average the Chée carries 2.6 cubic metres per second there, and during the flood of 3 February 2020 it briefly reached 118.

The land in the commune is predominantly agricultural (figures from 2018):

• Meadows: 37.2%
• Arable land: 31.2%
• Woodland: 21.6%
• Mixed agricultural land: 7.5%
• Built-up areas: 2.5%

The climate is temperate with cool summers. For 1971 to 2000 the annual mean temperature is 10.3 °C, and rainfall reaches around 882 millimetres a year.

“With 103 inhabitants (2023) and just over ten square kilometres of land, Vroil is a very small commune.

Vroil and champagne

Nothing in the available information points to any viticulture in Vroil. Vineyards do not appear in the land-use figures, and no champagne houses or growers are recorded for the village. It has no Grand Cru or Premier Cru classification. Anyone passing through is in the Marne, the heartland département of Champagne, but in a rural fringe far from the famous vineyard slopes of the Montagne de Reims, the Vallée de la Marne or the Côte des Blancs.

Administratively, Vroil has belonged since 1 January 2014 to the Communauté de communes Côtes de Champagne et Saulx, formed from several small groupings of communes.

Vranken Champagner Keller

What to see

The village is plain. Its sights include:

• the church of St Peter and St Paul
• the wash-house (lavoir)

Historically, the village is linked to the Hériot de Vroil family, who appeared from the 18th century as lords of Bettancourt and Vroil.

For lovers of good wine, then, Vroil is more a stop on the way through than a destination for tasting. The nearest post offices are in Revigny-sur-Ornain, about six kilometres away, and in Sermaize-les-Bains, which also provides the local gendarmerie.