Exploring the Maison That Fueled Hollywood’s Iconic Star | Piper-Heidsieck

It's so beautiful.

Amazing. Yeah, so that's the main winery, um, and then next door we have the reserve wine winery. But yeah, and And for Piper Rare, we work only with stainless steel.

Only with stainless steel.

So no oak.

This is like the biggest tank I think I've ever seen in my whole life.

Yeah, those ones are the blending tanks.

Yeah, for Piper and everything. Wow, that's so cool.

Yeah, for all the houses.

This is just like such a massive tank. I don't think I've seen one this big ever.

They have different sizes. There's something that's really, really important for us at Piper is the preservation, and so that's why we have So many different tanks.

You're doing block by block, vineyard by vineyard.

Exactly. Each tank would be one year, one grape variety, one vignoble, one, one cru.

That's why there's so many different tanks anyway, because it's all vinified separately to be blended in these massive ones.

Exactly. This winery is one of the main reasons why we came here. Yeah, this winery was built in 1995, so actually before Piper came here, there was another champagne house before named Bésta de Bellevaux. And when we came here, the idea was to use, you know, this space and also have the space to extend because, you know, it's not easy to navigate like when you have neighbors all around it. So next door we have the Reserve Wine winery where we have all the reserve wines that we use in the blends to create Piper. Because, you know, in the Brut we have about 30% of reserve wine, which is quite a high percentage.

Yeah, for a standard Brut, that's at least 5% higher than most other places.

And the oldest reserve wine dates back from 1990.

26.

Oh wow. So yeah, every year we have to feed the Riesling winery, making sure we do not just take it all and keep some wine there for later. Exactly. So we can go inside. Maybe it's a little quiet at the moment. I think everybody stops because we have no press center here. Okay, nothing is pressed here.

So they're all pressed in the vineyard and then brought with just like the basic juice or the must that comes together with it.

Yeah, and reason being that we road for the grape to travel.

Yeah, they don't travel well.

No, so we press them as close as possible to where they're picked and as quickly as possible after that. We work with many different press centers all around Champagne because the thing is that there can be an hour drive and they'll oxidize, they'll become not as good, and they will color as well. Yeah, because the specificity of Champagne is that we make white wine out of black grape. Yeah, so if you travel with them and if it starts kind of leaking or something, you will get— start to get some coloration, which So here only the must comes after 24 hours since they've been picked, because they spend the overnight in the press to do what we call, you know, débourbage.

Yeah, to do like a slower version of the press.

No, so I mean, yes, there is a slower version of the press that will avoid the coloration of the juice, but it's also that they will spend the overnight in the tanks in the press center so that all the sediments and everything can drop at the bottom of the tank. So it's kind of the first like natural filtration by gravity.

That's unique.

So first fermentation in the tank, we leave the top of the tank open, and then in about 10 days the juice is fermented and we wait, we wait, we wait. And then the winemaker and his team and the tasting committee, they're gonna start tasting all the wines. So in this room, the room of the tasting committee— so at Typeur tasting committee is made of 8 people, 4 men, 4 women, equal. Different ages, different backgrounds, so that they can all bring something different to the table. And they would taste all the wines to assess them. They get to know them, basically. Yeah, like, yeah, let's, let's talk. And so they taste about 15 wines blind every day, and they assess them. It's like a religious ceremony when they, when they taste the wine. So they don't speak to each other during tasting, and then at the end of the tasting, they put it all together to see, you know, whether they feel the same way about the wines and they discuss how they will get to know the wines and how they will start to kind of allocate the different wines to the different drinks. They do that for weeks, starts from November through to January, every day at 11 AM.

It's a lot of wine to taste. It ends up being like 200 wines almost by the time that they're done.

They taste blind, which means that they don't know what they're tasting. It's really, really important because they don't want to overrate or underrate any wine.

Especially if it's coming from like a Grand Cru or Premier Cru, we can't rate it higher. What if the vintage wasn't good? Exactly. What if a different plot performed really well?

Yeah, exactly. With climate change, we see a lot of like plots that maybe we would not have necessarily noticed in the past, in a good way. So it's also a good way not to, you know, underrate. This book is more than 240 growers. Wow. All around Champagne. We have a strong commitment in the vineyard of sustainable viticulture.

You guys are B-certified as well too?

So we are B-Corp certified, which is like a more global certification for, you know, CSR in general, but we are also VDC certified, which is really, really dedicated to the vineyard, while B-Corp is more global. Our goal is to get all of our partners to also go towards certification because we can't force them, you know. Yeah, we can encourage and guide them and share what we do, and this is how we actually do it. So spending a lot of time on the field with them, just really being a positive kind of guiding position.

Yeah, exactly. I love this map.

All of our supply covering the whole world. Champagne area, and then it's showing, highlighting grape variety by grape variety.

This is a really cool map to see exactly where everything is and how it comes together.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, because when you're in Champagne, it can be a bit confusing. The appellation covers 34,000 hectares, and Champagne is much bigger than that, 10 times bigger or 15 times bigger, because the appellation is very centralized and is only covering the best terroirs that are suitable to grow vines.

And I think it's also hard for people to realize like how much the négociant and grower aspect really is here because of how concentrated the vineyards are in specific areas. You really see it like so starkly when you're there, like, oh, the vineyards are here, they're growing corn or beets over there, and here's a bunch of cows eating grass for some really great cheese later. And it kind of is all sectioned across, but you can always see where the vines are growing. They're on those great slopes. There's none in the valleys.

Yeah, we have the most fragmented vineyard in the world. Yeah, so it's one tiny plot here, another one here, and they all belong to different people. It's not just one huge plot belonging to this winemaker or grower and the other one— no, it's this one might be to Piper, this one might be to I don't know, "mueto," this one maybe to that grower, and we are all side to side.

You can so easily see it, especially in like the growing techniques there. You walk in the vineyards, those people look like they're doing organic, that doesn't look like they're doing organic, these people have planted their vineyards more spaced out, these vines look very old. You can see that they're different ways of thinking, but they're just so concentrated in one space.

That's also sometimes that can be the tricky side of things because, you know, if you're a grower and you're doing everything organic and then next door you have that guy who does not really care, who's like heavily spraying, and like how can you ensure that, you know, there's nothing that— well, there's this and there's also the weather conditions, and this year is a great example. We have the most northern vineyards in France for sure, in France, so this is very, very challenging. The year before 2022 was dry, dry, dry, so no problem. But this year, it's— that's not the right year to go organic. But we are not stopping our efforts. We continue because we are convinced that this is the way to go to preserve, you know, our terroir for the future. You can't just exhaust the soil and get good quality grapes. But yeah, it's too adaptability. So let's head to the cellar. Okay. There we go. Oh wow, this just goes—

look, it just goes all the way down there. This is where the wines come to rest. Really modern cellar. This is a lot of wine.

Yeah, that is how many bottles on the label here.

So this whole pile is 23,705 bottles. Yeah, they're just resting. This is for classic Heizer.

This is rare.

This is rare. Yeah, so this will be here for quite— yeah, 10 years, quite a lot of time.

Actually, how long they've been here, that's the thing, we don't know.

Yeah, it doesn't list the vintage or anything, so we have no idea.

But these will be here, you know, 10 years because we age rare for minimum.

It's not that much dust on it yet, so it can't be 10 years.

No, they haven't been here for 10 years, but I've been here 2 years and they were already here when I arrived. So they were already here when you arrived? So they are at least 3 or 4 years.

Wow, this is a lot.

Almost halfway, but still a few years In a little bit, we'll be able to open those bottles. Oh, this is cool.

This is Piper, it said on the front, I think. So this is the Piper Heidsieck Brut. It's just hanging out here, just stacked on top of each other.

So great.

I see my vintage already. There's 1990.

Oh, I'm 1992. Really?

Oh, it's such a good vintage. We were born in it.

I know.

Oh, it's actually labeled. Wow, so cool to see 1990 here. Let's see if we can find— no, you don't have your vintage at all, Sham. She's 1983.

'83, no, I'm sorry, we didn't make it.

These are unlabeled.

Yeah.

Wow, so this is the oldest vintage that they have, 1976. 1976 rare. It was released like this?

Yeah.

This is wonderful.

1985, inspired by the original design dating back from 1885 from Pierre-Carl Fabergé. Gold, lapis lazuli, blue stone, and diamonds. At the time, this was— and I guess it's The most prestigious.

This is a pretty fancy bottle.

Less than 5 created in the whole world.

Wow, did you hear that? Less than 5 created in the whole world. Wow, that's amazing.

This was launched in 1985, so 200 years after the foundation of Heidsieck. How do you feel about some tasting?

Yeah, time to taste some wine.

Many different reasons. Um, first let's talk about the wine, the wine itself. We have a very precise selection of cru, about 50 cru represented in Essentiel, chosen for their complexity, their potential of aging. When we describe Essentiel, we talk about premium non-vintage.

Okay, so majority of it is from 2018, and that this is primarily Pinot Noir, which is the case in most cuvées at Piper-Heidsieck.

We are black grape dominant house. You won't find Essentiel in all the retailers as you would usually. You will find it in fine wine retailers only, in gastronomic restaurants. So we have really like kind of narrowed down the style and the channels in terms of distribution to be a little bit more specific. Also in terms of winemaking, we have selected wines with more aging potential, you know, on a regular non-vintage be like 3-5 years of aging potential, but then your wine is not gonna turn into something amazing. It's meant to be consumed right away. Yeah, as opposed to Essentiel, it is going to age, and it is going to age beautifully and gracefully. You can keep it for 5, 10, 15 years. It's gonna keep aging, and it's gonna be beautiful. We've already got that complexity, the toastiness, which is more obvious.

It's nice and it brings together kind of earthen and soft berry notes into this almost more structured nose, which is very classic for Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier dominant.

And the palate is like very brilliant, very bright, very structured, and still very, very fresh, balanced. It's, it's really the balance between enough complexity but at the same time it's not overpowering. You get your the fresh fruits, like you said. We've had connection with black grape for so long. So Blanc de Noirs is really, we talk about it around 3 main aspects. First, a tribute to the past, to the connection, the long-term relationship we have had with black grape. And we say black grape because it's not only Pinot Noir, it's also Meunier. Then it's a very contemporary Blanc de Noirs because we wanted to make Blanc de Noirs our own way. When you think of Blanc de Noirs, you will you would think, you know, powerful champagne, maybe a little bit Venus, um, can be heavy, not so easy to drink like as aperitif or something. And Emilien wanted his own version of Pinot Noir, the twist from Piper. So the 20% Meunier are really bringing the freshness.

Whatever he's done in terms of the aging, and also, I don't know, 2019 was kind of a warmer year.

Yeah, so it's really quite bold. Part of the trio, yeah, 2018, 2019, 2020 were just amazing in Champagne. Clean, fresh, fruitful world. And the last aspect that we talk about, it is looking towards the future because it is the first champagne of Piper-Heidsieck that is 100% sustainably farmed. Wow! You can see at the back you've got the two labels highlighting, you know, the certification that I was talking about earlier. We are BBC certified. We started tracking sustainably farmed wines from 2019.

It's really lovely. This is the most current release?

Yeah.

So even though it's the most current release, it's really cool to see like 2016 showing, but also the reserve wines showing and bringing this more confidence into the glass. Yeah, I know it's a gastronomic wine, but the palate is so Chardonnay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

These two together, this Blanc de Blancs and Blanc de Noirs, really showcasing what the winemaking of the house can do. Like, it's still lifted, it still has that structure. The house is very like Blanc de Noirs, Pinot Noir based, but that, that softness of Chardonnay really comes through so nicely. 55% Pinot Noir, 45% Chardonnay. There we go. 2014.

How was this vintage? Beautiful. It followed a very— one of the coldest vintage, which was 2013. The one before, for very regular harvest in September. So nothing to disturb nature too much.

I always love vintages, especially when we're seeing the blended beforehand, this nice snapshot in time.

Yeah, it's really a picture of the year.

It really shows that it was a great harvest because it's just giving a lot of harmony in the glass overall and a very nice harmonious palette too. Well, she's poured me a blind wine previous to figuring out what this was, and it ended up being the rare 2013 vintage. Now, what are the clues that give you this in the glass? First off, this is a Chardonnay dominant wine. You can get that right away from the aromas, the orchard, the softness, the almost lacy-like placement as it kind of comes into those aromas and how it lays on your senses. And then when we get into the palate, this is where we get our first clues about the vintage because it's super harmonious and it's kind of all together as one. And it really is leading with that Chardonnay, but there's a lot of lightness to it and levity. It really kind of pulls up. It's coming from a cooler vintage, and 2013, knowing that this is a wine that ages for at least 10 years, would be the closest vintage that I could guess that would fall in line with all the other wine knowledge that's there. Sometimes when it comes to a blind tasting, you're not just guessing what the grape is, but you're also using the knowledge that you have from the region, from what's being made, from what's happening around, what's happening with the house, to figure out exactly what you're tasting. She really has a nose for Chardonnay.

When you like something.

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