Champagne dreams & stories from the past

MANILA, Philippines - It is mid-morning in Eparnay, about 130 kilometers from Paris. A Frenchman leads us into a room filled with old portraits and opens into a garden at the back of this 18th-century house.

He asks, “Would you like something to drink?”

“Water,” we say.

The lady with us says, “Is that allowed here?”  

The Frenchman laughs, “Normally it is not allowed, but for you, we will make an exception.” 

It may have been a joke — well, half a joke, really — but when you are in the Champagne region of France, you drink bubbly whatever time of the day, especially if you are in the house of Moët & Chandon — the champagne of champagnes, the bottle to give or receive for the most special occasions in one’s life.

The Champagne region is only .5 percent of the worldwide vineyards. Bordeaux and California are both four times bigger than Champagne, which is only 34,000 hectares, so what is produced here is considered very precious. So precious the French law protects it and decrees that only the sparkling wine produced here can be called “champagne.” All others — from Italy, California, Australia, and the rest of the world — call theirs “sparkling wine.”   

In fact, says, Pierre-Louis Araud, brand ambassador of Moët & Chandon, Champagne Avenue is the most expensive avenue in France and the world. Not all the designer shops and their fabulous wares on Champs Elysees (or Fifth Avenue) can compare to the collective value of what’s below Champagne Avenue — cellars storing some of the world’s most expensive liquid.

The Moët & Chandon cellars alone are a maze of 28 kilometers — that’s more than the half-marathon distance of 26k! — cool, dark, chalky and dry.

The oldest bottle in the cellar is from a vintage year, 1892, 120 years old.

Araud answers the question on our minds when he says, don’t break away from our small group of three journalists — accompanied by Olga Azarcon, Moët Hennessy country manager in the Philippines — lest we get lost in the maze.

Any huge cellar — and I’ve seen about four in Europe — gives me the creeps, reminding me of an Edgar Allan Poe short story, but each cellar ultimately has its own personality — a distinct smell (from the kind of wines or spirits they store) and feel.

Moët & Chandon, perhaps because of its nature, is a happy cellar, no matter if the lighting is very dim and the bottles sit in this underground maze for many more years to come. The chalk walls are cool to the touch, maintaining this kind of temperature throughout the year, even at the height of a sizzling European summer, and there is no need for air-conditioning.

And chalk in the soil where the grapes are grown is what makes a bottle of champagne unlike any other in the world.

Accounting books reveal that Claude Moët used to sell his wines to the King of France and his favorite customer Madame de Pompadour.

This royal tradition was continued by his heirs, especially his grandson Jean-Rémy Moët, considered the spiritual father of Moët & Chandon.

There is a Sephora tree in the garden of the house that Claude Moët built, which was christened “The Three Emperors’ Tree” because on March 21, 1814, some of the most powerful royals in Europe sat down under the tree and enjoyed glasses of champagne with Jean-Rémy.

They were Emperor Francois II of Austria, the Tsar of all the Russias, Alexander 1st, Grand Duke Nicholas, the King of Prussia, the Prince of Orange, future King of Holland Prince Metternich, and the Duke of Wellington. 

Jean-Rémy Moët was the mayor of Eparnay and he made Champagne and his champagne famous the world over.

“He devoted every effort to share the magic of Moët to the world,” says brand ambassador Pierre-Louis Araud. “He was charismatic, he had a daring approach, he had vision. He worked to improve the quality of champagne. He was also a great marketing, sales and PR manager. For instance, he used to send his agents into the country and would ask if the champagne was sparkling enough, sweet enough for the consumers because he really wanted to adapt to their tastes and meet their needs. Two hundred years ago this was all very new. He said, if you want to share Moët to the world you have to do testing.”

He was responsible for buying the vineyards where Benedictine monk Dom Pérignon perfected the double-fermentation of creating champagne, and Moët & Chandon later acquired the brand Dom Perignon.

Jean-Rémy’s PR skills were also the stuff of legend. Champagne being located between Paris and east of Europe, military troops had to pass through Eparnay. One of them was Napoleon Bonaparte whom Jean-Rémy met in 1782 at the military academy when he was getting orders of champagne.

They became close friends.

Bonaparte would always stop at the Moët estate to stay and to pick up cases of champagne during his military campaigns — but then so did his pursuing enemies. Jean-Rémy opened Moët’s cellars to both sides, not only to preserve his business but to preserve the whole town from pillaging by either side.

Legend has it the only time Napoleon did not stop by the Moët estate was on his way to Waterloo.

Some of Napoleon’s hats were bought by the House of Moët & Chandon, including the last one he wore when he said goodbye to his officers before going to jail. He was on a boat and his hat flew in the wind and someone picked up the hat, was sold, and changed several hands throughout the years, until Moët bought it in 1969 from a private collector.

From Jean-Remy Moët the story continues with his son Victor and daughter Adelaide. The daughter married a businessman from Burgundy called Chandon, and in 1833 when Moët retired the house became known as Moët & Chandon.

Chandon himself was a pioneer. At the end of the 19th century, he built the first laboratory in Champagne to find a solution for the pest phylloxera, which threatened to devastate France’s wine industry. He turned the laboratory into a verticulture school to teach farmers how to do grafting.

“What is good for Moët is often very good for Champagne and vice versa,” says Araud.

That has been true for the past 300 years in Moët’s history. The house works with 4,000 farmers as their own vineyards of 1,200 hectares are not enough. The grapes are handpicked during harvest, chosen, the juice turned into wine, then yeast and sugar are added, tested, and fermented.

Even though the law requires only 15 months for non-vintage minimum maturation, Moët & Chandon keeps them for two and a half years; for vintage, three years is required by law, Moët & Chandon does it for an average of six years.

The oldest bottle, according to Arnaud, would still taste as good today as it did in 1892. 

“Last year, we had an event in China to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Moët & Chandon in China. We opened bottles from 1911.”

Mostly, though, such collector’s vintages are sold at auction for charities in Paris, New York, Hong Kong and Shanghai.

In one auction in Paris, they sold a block of six bottles for half a million US dollars.

What’s beneath Champagne Avenue — in those cool, long and winding cellars — is really more expensive than the glitziest stores on any avenue above ground.