Grand Houses or Family Growers: Choosing Your Paris Champagne Day

Hours, prices and access verified by the Paris Champagne Tours team — last checked 2026-09-18.

The Pommery estate in Reims, its turreted buildings behind the iron gates

This guide decides one thing: who pours your champagne. A big house gives you the famous name, the deep chalk cellars and a polished visit. A family grower gives you the person who tends the vines. Most of the best champagne tours from paris mix the two, and a few commit to one side. Here is how to choose.

What is a champagne house?

A house is a négociant-manipulant, NM on the label. It buys grapes, musts or wines to add to its own and makes the champagne on its premises. The Comité Champagne counted 410 houses in 2025, and they shipped 191.9 million of the region's 266.1 million bottles.

The names you know are houses: Moët & Chandon in Épernay; Veuve Clicquot, Pommery, Mumm, Ruinart, Lanson and Taittinger in Reims. Their cellars are the famous ones. About 25 km of galleries run beneath the Saint-Nicaise hill in Reims, and 110 km beneath the Avenue de Champagne in Épernay.

What is a grower, and what does RM on the label mean?

A grower owns vines. In 2025 the region counted 16,460 of them. Some sell their grapes to the houses, and others belong to a cooperative. The ones you visit on a tour make their own wine.

A récoltant-manipulant, RM on the label, makes champagne only from its own vineyards. That is the family estate the tours mean by "a grower": one family, its own slopes, its own cellar. A récoltant-coopérateur, RC, hands its grapes to a cooperative and takes back the wine to sell under its own name.

Where do cooperatives fit?

Between the two. A cooperative presses and makes wine for its grower members, and cooperatives and growers together shipped 74.2 million bottles in 2025. The region has 120 of them.

You will meet one on some days. My Winedays' day pairs its famous house with two family vineyards, or with a cooperative and a family vineyard. If a cooperative matters to you, ask when you book which it will be on your date.

What happens on a house visit?

You go down into the cellars with the house's own guide, often in a group with other visitors. You walk the chalk galleries, see the bottles resting and learn how the house makes its wine. Then you taste. It takes an hour to two hours.

The cellars stay at 10 to 12 °C all year, so bring a layer. On their own sites the houses charge from €20 at Nicolas Feuillatte for one glass to €90 at Ruinart. Moët & Chandon's visit costs €48 for 90 minutes, and Veuve Clicquot's €36 for an hour. On a tour the fare usually covers it.

What happens at a grower's?

Something smaller and closer. You visit a family winery in a village among the vines, see the cellar where the wine is kept, and taste with the family or its guide. On the Reims afternoon each grower gets an hour and a half, and you taste six glasses across the two.

Blue Fox promises a personal welcome at its family winery, Champagne DOMI. France Intense's growers' day ends at Champagne Roger-Constant Lemaire. You meet the people, and you taste wine from the family's own vines.

Can you do both in one day?

Yes, and it is the most common shape of the day. My Winedays' day from Paris visits one famous house and two family vineyards, with lunch between. Blue Fox pairs Nicolas Feuillatte with a family winery. Champagne Tasting Tours visits a small grower and one larger producer.

Privately, Le Tour de Vigne pairs Moët & Chandon with an independent producer at Châtillon-sur-Marne. Parismatic pairs Vranken-Pommery with the grower Michel Fagot. If this is your first visit, a day with both lets you taste the difference for yourself.

Which days visit only the big houses?

Galaxytour's private day is the clearest: Moët & Chandon and Veuve Clicquot, both paid in the fare, with a house guide in each cellar. Its Moët & Chandon day does the same with one house. The minivan day spends its cellar time at Vranken-Pommery, after two and a half hours in the Verzenay vineyards.

The Go Go Tours cathedral day visits "a renowned house", assigned on the day. Several shared days name a big house only "subject to availability", and Veuve Clicquot closed for the winter from 28 December 2025 to 7 April 2026. If one name matters to you, book the day that puts it in the fare.

Which days visit only growers?

All of them start in Reims. The Reims afternoon visits two family wineries in four and a half hours, for $152. France Intense's day visits three family wineries with nine tastings and lunch, and Sparkling Tour's does the same with a two-course lunch.

Sparkling Tour says it plainly: Moët & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot and Ruinart are not on its day. Its private version adds a third course and a tenth champagne. From Paris, you reach all of these by the TGV to Reims, 45 minutes from Gare de l'Est.

Which is better for a first visit?

A day with both. You see the scale of a house's chalk cellars and hear its history. Then you meet a family making champagne from its own vines, and taste the difference side by side.

If you have only one day and one wish, let the wish decide. Want Moët & Chandon's cellars? Book the day that pays for them. Want to talk to the person who made the wine? Go to a grower.

Which is better if you already know champagne?

The growers, usually. You know the house styles already, and a grower's wine comes from one family's own vines and its own choices. On a growers' day you taste nine or ten wines from three estates, and you can ask what you like.

The exception is a house you have always wanted to see. Ruinart's crayères and Taittinger's cellars under the old Saint-Nicaise abbey are worth a morning on their own. Pair that with a growers' afternoon.

Houses, growers or both: the days side by side

These are the days that commit to one answer, and a few that mix them. Fares are the starting price in US dollars.

Operator	Who pours	Named producers	Tastings	Lunch	Fare from
Galaxytour	Houses only	Moët & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot	Two cellar tastings	Yours	$696 per person
Galaxytour	Houses only	Moët & Chandon	One cellar tasting	Yours	$550 per person
Go Go Tours	Houses only	A renowned house, on the day	At the house	In the fare	$408 per person
Paris Champagne Tour	Houses only	Vranken-Pommery	At least 4 glasses	In the fare	$275 per person
My Winedays	Both	A famous house, on the day	At least 8	In the fare	$372 per person
Blue Fox Travel	Both	Nicolas Feuillatte, DOMI	6	Yours	$269 per person
Champagne Tasting Tours from Paris	Both	Lanson on the route, by availability	At each producer	Yours	$443 per person
Le Tour de Vigne	Both	Moët & Chandon, a Châtillon grower	At each producer	Yours	$1,006 per person
À La Française	Growers only	Two family wineries	6 glasses	Yours	$152 per person
France Intense	Growers only	Roger-Constant Lemaire and two more	9	In the fare	$286 per person
Sparkling Tour	Growers only	Three family growers	9	In the fare	$280 per person

Every day in this table refunds in full if you cancel 24 hours ahead. The champagne houses and growers page has each house's own visit, price and season.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a champagne house and a grower?

A house, or négociant-manipulant (NM on the label), buys grapes, musts or wines to add to any of its own and makes champagne on its premises. A récoltant-manipulant (RM) makes champagne only from its own vines. In 2025 the region counted 16,460 growers, 120 cooperatives and 410 houses.

How can I tell a grower's champagne from a house's?

Read the small print on the label. RM means a récoltant-manipulant, a grower making champagne from its own vines; NM means a house; RC means a grower whose cooperative made the wine. The code sits beside the producer's registration number.

Which day tours visit both a house and a grower?

My Winedays pairs one famous house with two family vineyards or a cooperative, Blue Fox pairs Nicolas Feuillatte with a family winery, and Go Go Tours' lunch day pairs a big house with a small estate. Le Tour de Vigne and Parismatic do the same privately.

Is there a growers-only day from Paris?

Not among the shared days: the growers-only days start at Reims station. Take the TGV from Gare de l'Est and join the Reims afternoon, France Intense's day or Sparkling Tour's day there.

Will I visit Moët & Chandon or Veuve Clicquot?

Only on the tours that name them, and even then subject to availability; most shared days assign the big house on the day. One operator's listings say both close in January and February, and Veuve Clicquot's own site shows it closed from 28 December 2025 to 7 April 2026.

Do the big houses sell cheaper bottles than growers?

Nobody publishes a comparison, and prices vary by cuvée. What you can compare is the visit: the houses' own cellar visits cost from €20 at Nicolas Feuillatte to €90 at Ruinart, while the grower visits come inside a tour's fare.

How many tastings will I get?

The listings that count them run from 6 glasses on the Reims afternoon and the Nicolas Feuillatte day to at least 8 with My Winedays and 9 on France Intense's Reims day. Others promise tastings at each producer without a number.

Where these facts come from

The definitions and figures are the Comité Champagne's; the visit prices are each house's own.

Days that answer the question

Epernay and Reims Champagne Private Day Trip from Paris

A private car from a fixed Paris pickup point to Moët & Chandon and Veuve Clicquot, both visits in the fare, with Hautvillers and Reims Cathedral on the way. Lunch is yours.

From $696 per person

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Reims afternoon tour Champagne and family growers

Meets at the Reims station tourist office at 2 pm: two family wineries, six glasses and Hautvillers, back at the station by 6:30 pm. The train from Paris is yours.

From $152 per person

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Champagne Day Trip from Paris with 8 Tastings & Lunch

Hotel pickup in Paris, one famous house and two family vineyards or a cooperative, at least eight tastings and a lunch paired with three champagnes, for up to eight.

From $372 per person

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Next: decide who you want pouring, then compare every day on Paris Champagne Tours.