Sézannais

The twelve Sézannais villages are not uniform. Chardonnay's share rises toward the south, where Bethon, Montgenost and Saudoy are each planted more than 90 percent to the variety, while the three northernmost communes, Sézanne, Broyes and Allemant, carry noticeably more Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir. One of the twelve, Villenauxe-la-Grande, lies across the départemental line in the Aube rather than the Marne; it had around 300 growers in the early 19th century, lost its vineyard to phylloxera in the early 20th, and was not admitted into the Champagne appellation until 1970. Growers here work mostly as independents rather than under the great houses further north. Sézanne itself predates the vineyard by centuries. Its castle was built by Hugues Bardoul, lord of Broyes, in the late 11th century, and the town's first church, dedicated to Saint-Julien, was founded in 1084 and consecrated in 1114. In 1230 the count of Champagne had the town burned rather than risk it falling to an enemy while so poorly defended. The rue de la Juiverie and rue des Lombards still mark the Jewish and Lombard merchant quarters drawn by Sézanne's own medieval fairs. English forces under the earl of Salisbury took the town by siege in 1424 during the Hundred Years' War, and a fire destroyed around 1,200 houses in 1632. Little of the medieval wall stands today, but a scatter of towers survives, and the old rampart line is now traced by tree-lined promenades laid out over the filled-in ditches in the 18th century. The town sits where the old Paris-Strasbourg and Lyon-Reims roads cross, still marking Champagne's western approach from Paris.