Mercier

51200 ÉPERNAY

Champagnes

Production Conventional

Services On-site sales, Organised visits

Gault&Millau's review

In 1858, a young entrepreneur named Eugène Mercier founded his own house in Epernay. Visionary and daring, this modern commercial pioneer shook up traditional methods and attracted a great audience, with lots of challenges and publicity stunts. In 1871 he decided to dig an underground city 30 metres deep and took 6 years to create with 47 galleries and a total length of 18 kilometres. An avant-garde entrepreneur, Eugène Mercier used all the technical resources available during his time to design his installations by rationally organizing the production and shipping of bottles. In 1886 the wine making and champagne storing cellars of the Mercier House were already lit by electricity and one of the first electric lifts was installed allowing connection between the cellars and offices. Another innovation developed by Eugène Mercier was a bottle rinsing machine that could wash 120,000 bottles a day. With this panache he built a solid champagne house that today is one of the top champagne brands (grande marques) in France, and internationally, competently overseen by the charming cellar master Christophe Bonnefond.

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