04/04/2026
A Sensory Journey to the Heart of Aÿ: Axel Ritenis Explores Pressoria 🥂✨
In the world of fine wine, few figures possess the discerning palate and sharp eye of Axel Ritenis. This week, the renowned critic and editor-in-chief of Connoisseur Magazine traded the bustling streets of Paris for the golden hills of Aÿ-Champagne, visiting the acclaimed Pressoria museum.
Housed in a meticulously restored former Pommery pressing house, Pressoria has become a "must-visit" landmark since its opening. For Ritenis—whose recent reports have covered everything from the Louvre heist to the legends of Bordeaux—the visit was a deep dive into the very soul of the terroir.
"Pressoria isn't just a museum; it’s an awakening," Ritenis noted. "It strips away the elitism of Champagne and replaces it with a pure, sensory connection to the land and the vine."
The visit highlights the growing trend of "edu-tainment" in the wine industry, where history and high-tech immersion meet to tell the story of the world's most famous bubbles.
The Pressoria Experience: A Short Story of the Tour 📖✨
Stepping into Pressoria is like walking into a living, breathing encyclopedia of effervescence. The tour doesn't start with a bottle, but with the earth.
As you begin, you descend into the depths of the Champagne subsoil. You aren't just looking at charts; you are touching the cool, porous chalk that defines the region’s unique minerality. In the next room, the seasons flash by in a 360-degree digital display—you hear the winter wind whistling through the vines and feel the humid heat of a summer harvest.
The Highlights of the Trail:
The Scent Tables: Visitors lean in to catch the "nose" of different grape varieties—Pinot Noir, Meunier, and Chardonnay—training their senses to identify notes of brioche, citrus, and white flowers.
The Bubble Room: A stunning immersive installation where you are "shrunken down" to the size of a bubble, experiencing the journey from the bottom of the flute to the surface.
The Final Act: The tour culminates in the tasting salon. Here, framed by panoramic windows overlooking the UNESCO World Heritage hillsides, guests are served two distinct cuvées.
It is here, flute in hand, that the entire journey comes together—a perfect marriage of geological history and liquid art. For any traveler or wine lover, the Pressoria tour is a reminder that every bubble tells a story of millions of years in the making.
