Ayala

Edmond de Ayala in 1855, the son of a Colombian diplomat moved to Mareuil in Champagne to learn to make wine. He married in 1858 with a d'Albrecht who brought in the wedding basket the Château of Aÿ and his vineyard and together founded the House Ayala in 1860 and the brand was registered at the clerk of the commercial court of Reims in 1875.

Edmond's brother, who had meanwhile settled in London and was a very close friend of the Prince of Wales, asked his brother to make a lightly dosed Champagne, and Ayala thus became the official supplier to the English crown. The image of Champagne Ayala is created and so is its success.

The vicissitudes of the phylloxera crisis in the 1885s which almost wiped out the vineyard, the fire in the cellars and Château in 1910, the 1914-1918 war, the 1929 crisis weakened the house Ayala which passed from hand to hand until 2005 when it was bought by the house Bollinger whose cellars are almost adjoining and overlook the same street.