New Dom Pérignon Winemaker Steps Up

What was your first experience with wine?

When I was a teenager, in Bordeaux with my grandfather. It was the wine of my grandmother’s estate, Château Nénin [in Pomerol], vintage 1976, my birth year.

How did you happen to be hired to work at Dom Pérignon? When did you begin your work there? What was your first task at Dom Pérignon?

Right after my graduation in agronomy and enology at the school of Montpellier in 1998, I did a 16-month mission in Portugal, Spain and Italy for Moët & Chandon to work on cork supply and quality. When I finished in 2000, they offered me a winemaker position in Champagne. In 2005, I moved to Dom Pérignon to work alongside then chef-de-cave Richard Geoffroy. My first important contribution was on Pinot Noir vine growing and red winemaking for Dom Pérignon rosé.

Did you work at other wineries or Champagne houses before you started work at Dom Pérignon?

Before entering Moët & Chandon and Dom Pérignon I worked for Château Nénin in Pomerol, Château La Grave Figeac in Saint-Emilion, Château Rieussec in Sauternes. I had as well opportunities to discover the New World working for Concha y Toro in Chile and Terrazas in Argentina.

I read on the winery website that you worked with Richard Geoffroy since 2005. What exactly did you do for him and what did you learn most from him? Did you discuss blending? If so, did you ever have any disagreements?

From the very beginning in 2005 Richard and I have shared the 360 degrees of what makes Dom Pérignon unique: its genesis and its vision, the ambition of creation, the aesthetic ideal, the elaboration, and all the vintages produced since 1921. We’ve been as well working together on the creation of experiences around our Champagnes, as our final goal is to build moments of emotion people will always remember. We’re ultimately memory makers!

I learned a lot from Richard. All the things you can learn from a mentor, a person who helps you to grow in life. Beyond techniques and expertise, it’s about vision and values.

Blending was at the core of our discussions and debate. Blending at Dom Pérignon is not only selecting and mixing still wines, blending is the whole of Dom Pérignon. Everything at Dom Pérignon from vineyards to maturation is designed with the ambition to organize diversity and complexity into coherence and harmony.

© LVMH
| Chaperon says harmony is an essential part of all the wines in the Dom family.

Dom Pérignon is so iconic. Is there much opportunity to impart your personality in the wine? If, so, how?

Each generation of cellarmaster must make its contribution to the project, which takes its roots in the 17th Century with Dom Pierre Pérignon. Respecting the past, of course, and the trajectory of such an iconic Champagne while trying to push its envelope. It’s less about imparting my personality in the wine, and more about finding my way, with the team, to push back the frontiers of Dom Pérignon project.

I have talked with other chef-de-cave who tell me that climate change has been beneficial, to some degree, for the Champagne region. Do you agree? What effect have you seen with climate change in your vineyards? Has it been a good thing? What can you do in the immediate and near future to deal with climate change? Will you look at using vineyards in different zones in Champagne that are cooler?

Talking about Dom Pérignon, I consider the last decade as one of the best decades ever in our history next to the golden ages of the ’60s. Less rain, warmer temperatures, more sunshine allowed less diseases affecting grapes (botrytis, downy mildew…) and higher maturities.

On the other hand, that means that the vine and the grape cycles are changing, and old models become progressively inadequate. So we must adapt the way we work and decide year after year, not only in the vineyard and for the harvest but at every single step of the winemaking (pressing, fermentations, blending etc). We change the vines we plant, the way we grow them. We change the moment we pick and the way we press and settle our juices. We change the way we blend, the origins of grapes, their proportions. We change the maturation time and the final dosage, but Dom Pérignon singularity remains unchanged.

We’re quite well prepared to do so at Dom Pérignon. In fact, being a vintage Champagne while respecting an aesthetic ambition obliges us, global warming or not, to change dramatically the way we work every year. We reinvent ourselves vintage after vintage.

In a few words, how would you describe the character of Dom Pérignon as it exists and as you want it to be? How would you describe the Rosé?

Harmony is in the heart of our aesthetic ambition. With harmony comes the precision, the intensity, the tactile, the minerality and the complexity. These six main dimensions drive our design work. But Dom Pérignon’s aesthetic ideal is defined in much greater details: dark, seamless, complete, vibrant, fresh yet mature, streamlined, sensual, deep … Dom Pérignon is one and indivisible.

Blanc and Rosé share the same aesthetic ambition. But there are two different ways to reach it and, in each vintage, two opportunities to embody Dom Pérignon. With Dom Pérignon Rosé, the Pinot Noir red wine part is bringing a third dimension to the project. Its power and its fruit – in a way, its physicality – brings into the blend an element of seduction, a thrill that gives Dom Pérignon Rosé a potential of transgression.

Can you briefly tell me about the next few releases? Will there be a 2010 and 2011 Dom Pérignon and/or Dom Pérignon Rosé? What will 2012 be like?

Concerning 2010, there will be more coming soon. For the following vintages you will have to wait.

Can you sum up your feelings about being the new chef-de-cave at Dom Perignon? Is is a sense of pride or more humility with the responsibility you have?

It’s about balance and meaning. I just feel it’s the right place to be for me today. This is the place where I receive the most that I could welcome and where I think I give my best.

I accepted this responsibility because it’s full of meaning for me. Because of my roots, because of what we’ve been living and building with Richard and the team for 13 years and, finally, because I’m a dreamer and an entrepreneur. To desire a star and to strive for reaching it…

Finally, what is the best thing about being involved with making Dom Perignon?

To be able to feel, live and finally experience the singularity of Dom Pérignon to the full. To try to answer to the ultimate question: why is there only one Dom Pérignon in this world?