Explorer Saint-Émilion

The Collegiate Church of Saint-Émilion was begun in the early 12th century for a community of Augustinian canons and completed in the Gothic style over the following centuries. Now the parish church, it pairs a Romanesque nave roofed with domes with a wide Gothic choir, and its 14th-century cloister holds medieval tombs and a modern painted cycle of the Apocalypse.

The Monolithic Church of Saint-Émilion was carved into the limestone hillside beneath the village in the early 12th century. Its nave and two aisles, about 38 metres long and 12 metres high, are cut from the rock as a single block, and a separately built bell tower rises above it. The church is still consecrated and can be visited only on a guided tour.

The Cordeliers Cloister is the ruined cloister of a Franciscan convent that the friars were allowed to build inside the walls of Saint-Émilion in 1383. Its arcades on paired columns stand around an open garden, and the site leads down to former quarries about 20 metres underground, where sparkling wine has been made since 1892 and guided cellar tours end with a tasting.

The Tour du Roy is a 13th-century Romanesque keep inside the walls of Saint-Émilion, built on an isolated rock riddled with caves and old quarries. The square three-storey tower is still used by the Jurade wine brotherhood, which proclaims the new vintage and the start of the harvest from its top, and 118 steps lead to a roof terrace overlooking the village.