Centuries of history, tradition and critical acclaim have ensured Dom Pérignon is, today, one of Champagne’s most-loved premium brands. With its 2015 vintage now released, we spoke to Dom Pérignon’s Cellar Master, Vincent Chaperon, to find out more about the story and philosophies behind the iconic name.

Dom Pérignon is one of Champagne’s most recognised names. Its history spans nearly 400 years; throughout that time, it has been one of the leading pioneers in quality Champagne production. To this day, its wines are praised as amongst the finest to emerge from the region.

A legacy of mastery

Upholding such a legendary reputation isn’t without its pressures – something not lost on current Cellar Master, Vincent Chaperon. Yet, as he recalls, his childhood prepared him better than most.

“Wine has always been in my blood,” he says, as we begin our interview at No.3 St James’s Street. “I grew up in Bordeaux; my father’s family has always been in the wine business. The Chaperons were négoce in Libourne from the 15th century, and my grandmother used to have an estate in Pomerol, Château Nénin.” His earliest memories, he reminisces, were of running through these esteemed Right Bank vineyards.

What caused him to uproot from Bordeaux and venture into the world of Champagne? “It was quite surprising,” he muses. A chance opportunity, to work at Moët & Chandon in 1999, set him on a trajectory that would last a lifetime. “In my head, it would only be for two or three years, to discover this fantastic world of bubbles. But I stayed.”

Now, it’s been 25 years since he moved to the region – 20 of which he has spent at Dom Pérignon, and the last five of those in his role as Cellar Master. “The role isn’t easy to describe,” he says, when asked what an average day looks like. “It’s very ‘complete’.” Vincent oversees every stage of the wine’s cycle, from vineyard, to harvest, to cellar. “There is no one day which is similar.”

Heritage and individuality

With a heritage as long and respected as Dom Pérignon’s, there comes an inevitable question: as its Cellar Master, how has Vincent put his own mark on the wine?

“Of course, this is an important question, when it’s not your own business,” Vincent says. “But you have to lead it as if it was your own. It is a challenge, to find the right balance between the heritage of Dom Pérignon, between the personality of the wine and your own sensitivity – what you could, and should, bring.” He believes that this element of individuality, seamlessly blended with tradition, is vital. “You need to bring something, to make the wine alive, and modern in its time.”

For this, he says, a Cellar Master needs to have a solid understanding both of the brand they work with, and of their own skill. “Dom Pérignon started over 300 years ago, so there’s a very profound heritage – you have to understand it perfectly. And you have to know who you are, and what you can add to this fantastic, beautiful trajectory.”

A tradition of vintages

Producing vintage Champagnes has always been a key feature of Dom Pérignon, and is certainly a unique approach in the region. As Vincent explains, Champagne growers typically favour non-vintage production – for good reason.

“That comes from the fact that the climate is very harsh, very inconsistent,” he explains. “It’s very difficult to grow vines in such a northerly position. We go through hail, through frost, through rain.” The majority of Champagne’s producers prefer to pick the best grapes from each year and blend them with those from previous vintages, ensuring steady production and a consistent style.

This isn’t the case at Dom Pérignon. Here, only grapes from each specific vintage are used, and only in the best years. It’s one of the key reasons their wines are viewed as being some of the most premium, expressive Champagnes on the market.

“It makes it a challenge, a real challenge, to make Dom Pérignon every year,” Vincent says. However, he believes understanding this is key to understanding his wines. “Making vintage Champagne is something classic, like Bordeaux or Burgundy.”

The team may only declare three out of ten vintages, if conditions are poor, yet every one of these three would be seen as a success. “I think that releasing a vintage is always something very special,” Vincent continues. “It’s a joy, to be able to share it with the world.”

Looking to the future

Given the impact of Champagne’s climate on its wines, Vincent is firm about the fact that vintage winemakers must work within nature’s boundaries, recognising what conditions have given them to work with each year. “Then, you have to be ready to orientate it in a direction which is your own,” he says. This intervention should work in tandem with the impacts of nature: “a double movement,” Vincent says, “which must be a seamless dynamic.”

He remains mindful, though, of keeping tradition front and centre. We speak briefly of the “out of the box” innovations sweeping through the Champagne world: of wines aged underwater, in gold, or in space; of new blends; and increasingly inventive bottles.

“I think that experimentation has always been at the core of luxury fine wine,” he says. “Especially for Dom Pérignon. Our founder, Dom Pierre Pérignon, the Benedictine Monk, changed the trajectory of Champagne drastically. He is considered as a spiritual father of Champagne today. The skill he really had was a permanent sense of experimentation.”

However, he’s wary of straying too far from the path. “The idea is not to explore directions which are not about us; our idea is really to understand our heritage, our tradition, and to push the boundaries of what we are doing within the direction of our precise vision.”

A precise vintage

Dom Pérignon’s latest vintage, the 2015, has just been released. As Vincent recounts, the vintage came with its own challenges – which tested the team immensely.

“2015 tells us about the evolution of Champagne,” he explains; this is a vintage that points to the future of what we can expect from the region. “It was a very warm vintage, but more precisely, it was very sunny. Most of all, I would say it was dry; we certainly had the longest drought we have ever had in Champagne, in modern times.”

Yet, Dom Pérignon was prepared. “We work with 900 hectares of Grand Cru and Premier Cru land,” says Vincent. “So, we could go to the plots which were not so affected, and select the best Pinot Noir and the best Chardonnay.”

All these factors have resulted in a truly special wine. “There is density in 2015,” Vincent describes. “A lot of concentration and richness, and because of the drought, a certain assertivity, a certain authority.”

He likens it to wines from 1995, 2003 and 2005: all wines needing a little time to “unfurl their true personality”. Yet, with time, he feels these are the wines that truly represent the future of Champagne. “It’s a very solid, very direct, linear wine.”

The 2015 vintage of Dom Pérignon is now available to buy on bbr.com.

With a delicious wine, a good book, an immersive film and some excellent music, you have everything you need to feel transported to warmer climes – even if you’re just in your own garden. This summer, we’re taking you on a tour of some of our favourite wine regions via their cultural riches. First up, we stop for a taste of the Mediterranean in Italy.

Summer, the season of adventure and escapism. Perhaps there’s a literal escape involved, hopefully to a sun-soaked beach or a verdant hiking trail – something emphatically pleasant. But I’m firmly of the belief that you don’t need a holiday lined up to indulge in a little escapism. Adventure is a mindset.  

Every time we drink a delicious wine, we are transported – however fleetingly – to the place it comes from. Just as a book can take us by the hand, gently revealing another world that we never knew existed. Alongside wine, art and culture have a unique power to take us out of our everyday routines, transport us somewhere new, bring us back with new perspectives.  

In that spirit, we’re kicking off a new series of summer adventures to see you through the coming months, whether you have a holiday lined up or not. With a good bottle of wine, a book, a film and some excellent music, you can have an adventure in spirit in your own garden. Or if, like me, you’re not lucky enough to have a garden, just throw it all into a picnic basket and make for the nearest Common.

First stop on our cultural adventures: Italia. Andiamo!  

What to drink

2021 Arcurìa, Etna Bianco, Graci, Sicily 

I adore Alberto Graci’s volcanic wines all year round, but their bright energy is perfect for summer. Alberto is a good friend of Berry Bros. & Rudd, and we were joined by him last year for our sustainability forum. I was struck by his rather poetic and philosophical approach to winemaking, how he sees the volcanic terroir of Mount Etna as a gift to work with – a force of creativity, resulting in a constant metamorphosis and an understanding of one’s place in nature. 

This energy translates beautifully into his wines. The 2021 Arcurìa, in particular, is just so fresh and expressive, with uplifting notes of lemon counterbalanced by a subtle nectarine ripeness. It is both floral and flinty, held together with a lively tension, speaking to the dynamic terrain it comes from. I recently enjoyed this wine with a barbecue lunch the other day – halloumi skewers, grilled vegetables and simply roasted potatoes – and it was just beautiful. Who would suspect that from Etna’s ash-cloaked slopes could come something so delicious?  

What to watch

The Hand of God, Paolo Sorrentino (2021)  

I first discovered Paolo Sorrentino while studying my Italian degree, via his film The Great Beauty (2013). Despite its exquisite cinematography, it had an air of jaded disaffection that made it hard to love. This isn’t at all the case with his latest film, The Hand of God.  

This highly personal, autobiographical film – continuing a grand Italian tradition that includes the likes of Cinema Paradiso and Fellini’s 8½ – is rooted in Sorrentino’s upbringing in Naples during the 1980s. It is a poignant coming-of-age tale, featuring a host of quirky family members, as they gather to watch the now-infamous 1986 World Cup event from which the film takes its name. But it’s not really about football, more a portrait of family life anchored in a particular moment in time. Heartfelt, nostalgic and soaked in Neapolitan sunshine, it shines a light on the adolescent stirrings of a great filmmaking talent.  

What to listen to

Fabrizio De André 

I realise that, to Italians, this is about as cliche as recommending Bob Dylan, but I still remember the marvel of discovering Fabrizio De André for the first time. One of Italy’s greatest songwriters, he was a leading figure in the cantautore (“singer-songwriter”) movement during the 1960s and ’70s. His songs draw from the rich tradition of Italian folk music across the country, singing in a range of dialects and telling the stories of marginalised characters and antiheroes – a mid-century troubadour, of sorts – alongside protest songs reflecting contemporary concerns.  

His style is often described as sitting somewhere between Leonard Cohen and Georges Brassens, with a strong pacifist and left-wing ethos. Whatever your stance on politics, his lyricism and musicality make him one of Italy’s greatest cultural heroes – so much so that they’ve named streets after him across the country.  

There are so many great songs to choose from. La Guerra di Piero is a quietly devastating anti-war protest song. The melancholy Via del campo has an old-world narrative feel, telling the story of a brothel street in Genoa. But the one that’ll get all the Italians singing in the piazza is Il Pescatore – and to me, it sounds just like summer.  

What to read

The Dry Heart, Natalia Ginzberg (1947)  

Another of Italy’s great anti-establishment intellectuals, Natalia Ginzberg is known for short, stealthy novels layered with complexity. In little over 100 pages, The Dry Heart is a compact psychological thriller that lays bare the failures of marriage. It begins with a jolt: a woman draws a gun and shoots her husband between the eyes. The rest of the story unspools to take us through the events leading up to the murder – a tale of the everyday and mundane, and the disaffection stirring under the surface.  

Ginzberg is hailed for her unique style, combining a complex emotional atmosphere with a strangely direct yet mysterious voice. If cool and detached Italian noir is your thing, this will be a real treat over the course of a sunny afternoon in the garden – with a glass of Graci’s Arcurìa to hand, of course.  

Buy the 2021 Arcurìa by Alberto Graci here

Caroline Frey is owner and head winemaker at Paul Jaboulet Aîné in the Rhône, Château La Lagune in Bordeaux and a domaine in Burgundy – she also has vines in the Swiss Valais. What has she learned from the people and the land of these diverse wine regions? Here, Alexandra Gray de Walden finds out.

Caroline Frey was born in Champagne so it could be argued that wine was in the blood. “My father purchased his first vineyards when I was very small,” she tells me. “I grew up in that atmosphere of vineyards, harvest…”

Was it something she always wanted to do? A vigneron’s vocation? Not so. Caroline’s first plan was to do something with plants and nature, both featuring heavily in how she runs her properties today. It was her mother who suggested she consider oenology. In 2000, while Caroline was completing her oenological studies in Bordeaux, her father purchased Château La Lagune in the Haut-Médoc. It remains one of the Frey portfolio’s great success stories. As she said of this serendipitous purchase, “Sometimes the planets align.”

Now based in Lausanne, Switzerland, Caroline spends much of her time travelling between her properties there, in Burgundy, Bordeaux and the Rhône. These diverse regions, with their different soils, grapes and climates, have given Caroline excellent opportunities for learning and experimenting. She learned about mildew in Bordeaux, about oidium in the Rhône and about both, she says, in Burgundy. “My philosophy in each place is to understand the story of the wine and the people. I used to play the piano – it’s like that. When you know the technical things perfectly, then it’s the best way to let the emotions out. That technical prowess gives you freedom.”

Organic evolution

After Château La Lagune, the Freys acquired Paul Jaboulet Aîné in the Northern Rhône. While La Lagune had already had many different owners, Jaboulet had been in the eponymous family for six generations. I can’t imagine this was an easy transition. Caroline made time to build trust and respect there. “There were lots of wines, and it was hard to focus so we streamlined the range,” Caroline tells me. She also introduced organic practices in 2006 before certification followed in 2016.

“We were quite early to organics and regenerative viticulture. Planting cover crops between vines is so useful, otherwise it becomes too muddy. We have non-cultivated areas for biodiversity and increased ecosystems, but it’s harder in places with dry ground.” At La Lagune, Caroline has overseen the planting of 1,000 small trees around the vineyard, effectively creating a natural clos (walled vineyard). Their controlled root growth (vertical, not horizontal) means they are not competing with vines for water and provide habitats for bats and birds – nature’s own pest control.

Despite her clear passion for organics, you won’t find the word on any of Caroline’s wine labels. “I don’t do it to be ‘organic’. I do it to make better wine and get the best expression of the terroir”, she says. “That doesn’t change whether you’re organic or not.” That said, the organic certification is important to her as recognition. “The team have worked towards it. La Lagune’s vineyards are near houses and it’s important our neighbours know we’re organic.” It’s worth noting that biodynamic principles are also followed at Jaboulet and La Lagune.

Vintage challenges

When Caroline and I meet, we are a short time away from the launch of our Rhône 2022 En Primeur offer. I am keen to hear how this challenging vintage was received at Jaboulet. “Well, I thought 2015 was hot and then we had 2022,” Caroline explains as she pretends to wipe her brow. As at many other estates in the region, the vines at Jaboulet – some of them over 100 years old – shut down to protect themselves during the very long drought. The granitic soil resisted well, thanks to the deep, water retaining clay which has helped produce balanced and fresh wines in 2022.

With hotter, drier vintages becoming more commonplace in the Rhône, what steps will Caroline take to mitigate the effects? For one, she is keen that the Rhône doesn’t follow Bordeaux’s lead in introducing more permitted grape varieties. As a member of a Syrah conservation group, she is passionate about the Northern Rhône’s flagship red variety. “I can’t change the recipe – the Northern Rhône is the birthplace of Syrah and the heart of Jaboulet is the Northern Rhône.”

She has been experimenting with massal selection – replanting new vineyards with superlative old vines – with 12 Syrah clones, enabling comparisons of yields, compositions and growing abilities. The right vines can then be chosen as and when replanting is required. Most interestingly, Caroline also has a small plot of Dureza (one of Syrah’s parents). This late ripening, low sugar and high acid grape is excellent for blends and already established as part of Syrah’s heritage.  

Horse sense

With a young daughter at school and a burgeoning winemaking empire spanning most of the length and breadth of France, Caroline is clearly no stranger to hard work and long days. I ask her what her experience of being a woman winemaker and winery owner has been like. “I don’t pay attention to it,” she tells me matter-of-factly. She was previously a member of the French showjumping team – equestrian sports are the only ones where men and women compete equally together. “Perhaps that helped me manage,” Caroline says. “Plus, I joined La Lagune at 25 as the owner’s daughter – that wasn’t easy.”

Caroline’s keen focus on sustainability is already protecting her vineyards – and their wines – for the future. Her daughter helps her in the vineyards in Switzerland so perhaps she will follow in Caroline’s footsteps. “It would be great to know someone from the family will continue the work, but nothing is certain.” If the vagaries of the wine world teach us anything, it is surely that.  

This month, we announced our exclusive partnership with Bibi Graetz. During his latest visit to No.3 St James’s Street, we caught up with Bibi on his latest experiments, the power of terroir, and his legacy of turning Tuscany on its head. 

Bibi Graetz is far from your standard Tuscan winemaker. Since founding his eponymous winery in 2000, he’s chosen to defy the trends of the region: you won’t find a Chianti or a Super Tuscan here. Rather, he has become a champion of Tuscany’s old vines, native grapes, and lesser-known terroirs.   

Bibi was one of the first in the region to focus on fresher, elegant styles of Tuscan wine. These styles are now as intrinsic to the Bibi Graetz name as the labels that emblazon each of his bottles. Colourful, vibrant and playful, they mirror Bibi himself, who is almost as well-known today for his eccentric, creative personality as he is for his wines. 

An unusual history  

It’s often the case that an artist, in following creative pursuits, defies what’s expected of them by their peers. As with everything else, Bibi turned this trope on its head.  

“My family is a family of artists,” he says. “My grandfather was an artist, my father’s an artist.” Bibi’s beginnings did lie in art; he studied at Florence’s Accademia d’Arte. “But I never became a professional. In all my life, I’ve been painting, and I never sold one piece.” He smiles while remembering. “I was jealous, and kept them to myself.” 

Instead, he found winemaking a more amenable way to share his artistic talent with the world. . “I’m a winemaker, but I’ve never opened a book of oenology,” he continues. “I do wines like a painting.” He, with his team, spends months at the blending table each year, meticulously mixing and layering his wines, like he would a painting. “It’s very precise work, very focused on quality.”  

How did a budding artist come to realise his future lay in wine? “I never thought of being a winemaker, until the day I decided. If you would have asked me a few days before that, I would have thought that you were crazy. But then, I went to visit a winery.” 

It was Bibi’s first glimpse of what happens ‘behind the scenes’. His childhood home near Florence had had its own vineyard, but his experience with it had been limited to “playing around” on a tractor, while his mother managed things. The winery visit opened his eyes. “I totally lost it. I fell completely in love with it. In just one day, I decided I would become a winemaker.”  

Leaving Chianti behind 

Bibi started his search for suitable vineyards in 2000. “I fell in love with the idea of making wine from old vines right at the beginning,” he says. “It’s one of the key things in my work.”  This love, at the time, was unique – Tuscany was still gripped with a “Super Tuscan fever”.  

“Everybody was talking about new clones, about Cabernet, Merlot, high-density vineyards,” he says. “I didn’t know what the hell clones were, and there were no high-density old vines. But by chance, I fell in love with it.”  

The old vines Bibi acquired weren’t the popular Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot, but old Tuscan varieties, which dominate production at his winery to this day. He lists them as we speak: Sangiovese, which Bibi calls the “King of Tuscany”, Canaiolo, Colorino, Ansonica. Almost as if by fate, the areas in which these flourished were the sites that Bibi was keenest to spend his time in. 

“My fear, when I started doing wine, was that I would be stuck in Florence, when I was in love with the sea and in love with the mountains,” he says. His discovery of old Ansonica vines in Giglio, a tiny island off the Tuscan coast, placed Bibi firmly by the sea and rectified one half of this problem. He located the solution to the other half in Fiesole, closer to home – quite by chance. 

“We bought this land behind Fiesole, for the new winery, and discovered this new terroir afterwards. Behind it, we found this hill that goes up, with all these paths, and grass, and cows – it gave me a feeling of the Alps.” His eyes brighten as he talks; it’s clear that this place holds a very special place in his heart. “There’s an incredible terroir there: really fresh, always windy. You feel like you’re in the mountains. Well, there’s no snow.” But he’s got a solution in mind for that, too. “Maybe one day I’ll do a Champagne in Norway.”  

The Bibi Graetz style  

The winds, altitude and coastal influences provided Bibi with cooler vines, helping him craft something quite different: “acidic, and transparent, but with such an incredible energy and freshness.”  Yet this style, now a hallmark of his brand, came about by accident.  

“In 2009, we had a very weak vintage in Tuscany,” he reminisces. “And I realised I’d made this different style of wine – it was really fresh, very Burgundian in style. People loved it.” Now, he considers this fresh character one of the “four elements” of his winemaking, alongside old vines, his unique sites, and – linking back to his roots – his art.  

“When I started to do my wine, I actually felt that I should paint my labels by myself.” Each of his bottles’ colourful labels is a Graetz original – he’s encouraged the rest of his artistic family to get involved, too. “Sometimes my children also paint the labels. It’s an ‘all in-house’ kind of thing.”   

A playful future for Bibi Graetz

The latest of these labels can be seen on Bibi’s Casamatta wines, newly redesigned this year. These are wines that, in Bibi’s opinion, perfectly encapsulate the terroirs of Giglio and Fiesole. Yet it’s when we discuss his latest project that he really lights up with excitement.  

In 2020, Bibi turned his back on his blending table for a new experiment. “I called it ‘Balocchi’,” he explains. “Balocchi means toys, the toys of Bibi Graetz!” He began to play with the grapes he had to hand, rather than consigning them all to his famous blends. 

“Testamatta and Colore [Bibi’s flagship wines] have many vineyards, many different plots, that we keep separate. And every time with these, you feel like – ‘wow, I would like to make this wine by itself. It’s so good!’” His first single-varietal wine was the Balocchi Cannaiolo, followed swiftly by a  Sangiovese, then a Colorino. Now, he’s pushed boundaries again, releasing his first ever wine from one of Bordeaux’s famous varieties: the Balocchi Cabernet Franc. 

He loops back to Fiesole. “In this vineyard, we found just a few rows of Cabernet Franc, a few rows of Cabernet Sauvignon, a few rows of Merlot – but really, two rows each, you’re talking about a tiny, tiny, tiny production.”  

It won’t be his last venture into new varieties: a Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot are soon to follow, he says. It’s clear that he has no intentions of resting on his laurels just yet. Whatever comes next, it’s certain, will be as playful and unique as the rest of his wines – all of which, Bibi describes happily, as “very, very fun.”

Bibi Graetz’s wines are available to buy now on bbr.com. If you want to find out more about our Italian wine offering, browse our past articles here.