Traveling, drinking, and dreaming with Moët & Chandon
“Too much of anything is bad, but too much champagne is just right.” Thus spoke F. Scott Fitzgerald. Wise words about the drink that captures the imagination the most and about which it is said that you should always have a bottle in the fridge. Those kinds of ‘you must have this’ and ‘you must do that’ statements usually don’t mean much to me, but that bottle of champagne, that’s there. For years.
On May 6, I received an email asking if I wanted to join Moët & Chandon on a press trip to Epernay to celebrate their new vintage release. This immediately starts the first lesson, because what is a vintage champagne actually? That is a bottle for which only grapes from one harvest year have been used and which have had a longer aging period. Unlike other bottles where grapes from different harvest years are used. The biggest difference is still the taste (and the price), with a ‘regular’ bottle the house style of the brand is leading. All bottles must have more or less the same taste, while with a vintage bottle it is precisely the intention that the taste of that specific year prevails. By the way, not every harvest year is suitable for a vintage champagne; Moët, for example, has only made 70 Grand Vintages between 1842 and 2004.
“After a lunch (with champagne) and a tour (with champagne) through a number of impressively decorated rooms, we head towards the cellars.”
All of this is told to me by hospitality manager Pierre-Louis Araud, in and around the gigantic house of Moët on the Avenue de Champagne in Epernay, a small village a few hours outside Paris. Together with a handful of journalists, we left early in the morning on the Thalys to Paris, where a shiny black van was ready to take us along typical French views to Epernay. After a lunch (with champagne) and a tour (with champagne) through a number of impressively decorated rooms, we head towards the cellars. The cellars, which are up to 30 meters deep in some places and a total of 28 kilometers long. Here, more than 100 million (!) bottles are waiting to be ready, and consider that wherever in the world you order a bottle of Moët, it always comes from those cellars.
I could talk for hours about the long history of the brand, about how it is the largest champagne brand in the world, with the largest vineyards (more than 1000 hectares) and how during the harvest time in September, as many as 2000 pickers are needed in those fields. After the tour, we are taken to Chateau de Saran where we will stay. A castle where you cannot just book a room but can only stay by invitation. A castle so exclusive that the rooms have no locks, because there is no one who should not be there. A castle as a castle should be, large, imposing, and full of history.
“In a room that immediately makes me feel like Queen Elizabeth, I prepare for dinner in the Orangerie of Trianon, which will take place later that evening.”
In a room that immediately makes me feel like Queen Elizabeth, I prepare for dinner in the Orangerie of Trianon, which will take place later that evening. Over a long gravel path, I walk in my L.K. Bennett pumps and Acne dress to the Orangerie, where handsome French men are handing out glasses of Moët. A dinner awaits us prepared by Yannick Alleno, a man with three Michelin stars to his name. Of course, the various champagnes from Moët are central, and the courses are designed to match the taste of each bottle perfectly. My favorite champagne during dinner was immediately clear to me, the Grand Vintage 1985. Also immediately one of the most expensive, as it turned out later, damn it. The evening lasted long, because with internationally flown-in buyers, wine merchants, and other interesting people, and many, many bottles of Moët that kept coming, I wished it would last forever.
Although we had a damn fine program on the menu the next morning. After a breakfast served in my room and after I had played with all the Dior products in the bathroom, we got back into the shiny van. Off to Roland Garros, yes really! Moët is a sponsor of the event and also has its own box practically on the field. After an endlessly delicious lunch (with champagne), it was time for a match. We fell quite literally into the butter, as Rafael Nadal (who won the tournament a week later) was just starting against Bayer, and I’m generally not a huge tennis expert, this is what you want. From the friendliest ladies who were at the VIP deck to take care of us, we received a bag with sunscreen and a little hat, really everything was thought of.
As Nadal has won in his slippers, and we chat a bit on that VIP deck (with champagne), it’s time to head to Gare du Nord for the Thalys to Amsterdam. With a head still full of the sun, the bubbles, and the experience, and a camera full of photos, I come home. When I open the fridge, I see that bottle of Moët standing there. Thinking of Fitzgerald's words, the cork pops out of the bottle and I reminisce about two wonderful days. With champagne.
