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Bollinger

Champagne, Ay, France

  • 156
    of the 245 000
    wine producers
    of the world

  • Weather

    6° C Few clouds

  • Time

    09:39 AM

  • Wine average?

    95 Tb

  • Country Ranking?

    118

  • Region Ranking?

    7

  • Popularity ranking?

    18

News

Forbes Magazine features Champagne Bollinger in their latest article “Royal Wedding: What Drinks Will Meghan and Harry Serve”

Forbes Magazine features Champagne Bollinger as a strong contender for the Champagne chosen for Harry and Megan’s Wedding on Saturday, May 19th.

Bollinger has held a Royal Warrant since 1884 and has been the official Champagne at previous Royal Weddings, including Prince Charles and Diana Spencer in 1981. According to the New York Times, Bollinger is Prince Charles’ “favorite Champagne.”

The article also highlights that Prince William and Kate Middleton served L’Hospitalet de Gazin 2004 as the red wine at their wedding.

 

Champagne Bollinger creates the “Perfect Moment” to celebrate the launch of R.D. 2004

To accompany the launch of Champagne Bollinger R.D. 2004 and true to our promise that “Life Can Be Perfect”, Champagne Bollinger invited two members of Club 1829 to live an exceptional moment and discover the brilliance of R.D. 2004 in the warm light of Southern Italy, on a yacht trip along the Amalfi coast.

A short film of this perfect moment can be found here.

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History

Jacques Joseph Bollinger founded Champagne Bollinger in 1829 with vineyards that have produced Champagne since the 17 th century. Jacques Joseph immediately began building a lucrative export business with dry Champagne that gained a worldwide reputation for its signature style.

The founding Bollinger died in 1888, and his sons—Georges and Joseph—took the reins. They acquired vineyards in the villages of Louvois, Bouzy, and Verzenay all while expanding exports. When Georges died in 1918, his son Jacques, a distinguished French Air Force pilot in WWI, took the helm. Jacques purchased vineyards and cellars, substantially expanding Champagne Bollinger’s capacity.

 

Jacques died in 1941, in the midst of the German occupation. His wife Lily saw the winery through the difficulties of war, which included nearly catastrophic bombing and severe shortages of fertilizer and fuel. After the war, Champagne Bollinger thrived under her leadership, and Lily became an ambassador for Champagne Bollinger and Champagne in general. Her words on the subject are still widely quoted:

I drink my Champagne when I’m happy and when I’m sad. Sometimes I drink it when I'm alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I'm not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it - unless I'm thirsty.”

Since 2008, for the first time in its history, the House placed its future into the care of a Chairman who was not a family member. Their choice fell on Jérôme Philipon, originally from the Champagne region, who had led an impressive career with large industrial groups.

With the Bollinger family's support, Jérôme Philipon has extended his predecessor's program of modernization and investment. With him, the House has continued to preserve its traditional expertise while incorporating the best of new technologies for the future development of the brand, both in terms of quality and commercial growth.

 

 

The relationship between Bollinger and the British secret agent goes back to the years when the latter was an exclusively literary hero. Champagne produced by the Aÿ-based House appeared in 1956 in Ian Fleming’s fourth Bond novel, Diamonds are Forever. In 1973, as 007 pursued his adventures on the silver screen, the relationship reached a crucial turning point: Christian Bizot, Bollinger’s Chairman, met Albert R. Broccoli, producer of the James Bond saga.

 

It was the start of a strong friendship between the two families, which was to seal the legendary association between Her Majesty’s secret agent and the champagne to which Queen Elizabeth awarded her Royal Warrant. For 007 and Bollinger, which has featured in Bond films since Live and Let Die, share a certain number of values: a passion for excellence, a sense of refinement, and consummate elegance.

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Vineyards

1650: The Hennequin de Villermont family settles in Champagne.

1829: Jacques Joseph Placide Bollinger (1803-1888) partners with a de Villermont descendant and Paul Renaudin to form the Renaudin Bollinger company.

1837: Jacques marries de Villermont's daughter Charlotte. They have one daughter, Marie, and two sons, Joseph and Georges.

1870: Jacques exports his first shipment to the U.S.

1884: Georges is awarded the Royal Warrant from Queen Victoria

1888: Georges and Joseph Bollinger take over the business on Jacques death, and acquire vineyards in Louvois, Bouzy, and Verzenay.

1901: Georges is awarded the Royal Warrant from King Edward VII.

1911: Because Bollinger used its own grapes, the house is spared during the Ay Riots when many Champagne houses are burned for importing grapes from outside Champagne.

1918: Georges dies and his son Jacques (1893-1941), takes over, following a career in the French Air Force.

1936: Jacques purchases vineyards in Tauxieres as well as the Duminy house and cellars.

1941: When Jacques Bollinger dies during the Nazi occupation of Champagne, Elizabeth ‘Lily’ Law de Lauriston Boubers (1899-1977), takes over.

1944: Bollinger's properties are heavily damaged by Allied bombardments to destroy German munitions, but General Patton's U.S. Third Army stops the retreating German army from dynamiting Bollinger's cellars.

1950: Lily is awarded the Royal Warrant from George VI and the Queen Mother.

1955: Lily is awarded the Royal Warrant from Queen Elizabeth II.

1971: Claude d’Hautefeuille (1913-2000), son-in-law of Lily’s sister, becomes president.

1975: Bollinger introduces its pre-phylloxera ungrafted vineyard with the 1969 vintage, naming it Vieilles Vignes Françaises.

1978: Christian Bizot (1928-2002), son of Lily’s youngest sister becomes president.

1993: Ghislain de Montgolfier (1943-), great-grandson of Jacques Joseph Bollinger, and nephew of Jacques and Lily, becomes Bollinger’s seventh president.

2001: Bollinger opens its first Bollinger Bar, in the Le Meridien in Grosvenor House on Park Lane in London .

2005: Etienne Bizot, great-nephew of Lily Bollinger and the sixth generation of the family to be involved in Champagne Bollinger, was named Managing Director

2005: Bollinger names Terlato Wines International its exclusive U.S. marketer.

2008: Jérôme Philipon, a Champagne native, is the first president to be chosen who is not a family member. He continues to preserve the traditional expertise of the Bollinger House with support from the Bollinger family.

 

 

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Winemaking

Bollinger is the only remaining producer in the region with its own cooperage, and keeps a stock of 3,000 oak barrels for fermenting the base wines for its Non Vintage and Vintage wines.  Their single cooper, an important link to historical knowledge, does not make any new barrels, rather spends his time fixing barrels, many of which are over 60 years of age. All Vintage wines are 100% barrel fermented, both alcoholic and malolactic fermentation, something no other major producer does.

Bollinger stores its reserve wines to blend into their Non Vintage cuvées in magnum bottles, an incredibly labor-intensive process that no one today undertakes. It requires opening by hand all the magnums to blend into the Non Vintage wines, crazy work that takes a team of 7 a full month to complete every year.

Lastly, all Vintage wines are aged under cork, and not under a crown capsule (like a soda capsule). This requires that every Bollinger vintage bottle bottle is hand-riddled, and then hand disgorged. Again, an unthinkable amount of work.

 

In 1992, Christian Bizot, nephew of Madame “Lily” Bollinger wrote “Bollinger Charter of Ethics and Quality.” These quality standards have since been edited into Bollinger’s “Ten Commitments” – written proof of the family’s passionate commitment to producing the finest Champagne, now and in the future.

 

Representing the governing principals of the House.

  1. Bollinger produces all of its wines.
  2. Bollinger guarantees consistency in the style of its wines through large vineyard ownership.
  3. Bollinger favors Grands and Premiers Crus.
  4. Bollinger uses primarily Pinot Noir as the base of its blends.
  5. Bollinger uses only the Cuvée in its wine production.
  6. Bollinger carries out the first fermentation of its wines in oak barrels.
  7. Bollinger keeps its reserve wines in magnums.
  8. Bollinger allows for a very long maturation time.
  9. Bollinger ages its reserve wines La Grand Année and R.D. under traditional cork.
  10. Bollinger implements a very low dosage
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Inside information

MYTHICAL SCENES

It was in 1973 that the indissoluble link between Bond and Bollinger was forged, when the renowned champagne from Aÿ accompanied James during the shooting of Live and Let Die. It was only natural that the most British of champagnes and the most British of secret agents should come together… This was the beginning of a firm friendship between the Bollinger family and the producers of the Bond saga. It must be said that the House and the agent have many values in common: excellence, authenticity, elegance…

Throughout Bollinger’s partnership with 007, the secret agent has had an opportunity to enjoy some of the House’s most acclaimed cuvées. In License to Kill (1989), Bond (Timothy Dalton) gets to taste Bollinger R.D. 1979 in a casino scene. In Casino Royale (2006), after another casino round where he wins a high-stakes poker game, Her Majesty’s secret servant (Daniel Craig) shares a bottle of La Grande Année 1990 –one of the most coveted vintages of the century– with the beautiful Vesper Lynd.



The collaboration between the House and the Bond producers also resulted in movie scenes which, over time, have become truly mythical. “Bollinger? If it’s ‘69, you were expecting me”, James Bond (Roger Moore) says to CIA agent Holly Goodhead on spotting a bottle of Bollinger R.D. in her bedroom: this scene soon became one of the signature lines from Moonraker (1979). In another iconic scene from the film, former mercenary assassin Jaws is seen opening a bottle of Bollinger R.D. to toast the happy ending with his girlfriend Dolly… with his teeth!

A glass of Bollinger is always a way for 007 to indulge in a brief respite from his action-packed life: at the beginning of The Living Daylights (1987), Bond (Timothy Dalton) takes a break from a professional phone call to accept the proposition of a stunning woman, joining her for a flute of bubbly on a boat. In A view to a Kill (1985), the secret agent (Roger Moore) takes the time to savour a glass of Bollinger–and the view of the river–with Stacey Sutton at a party. James Bond knows how to take a break in style!

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19 different wines with 181 vintages

Winemaking since 1829

  • Elizabeth ‘Lily’ Law de Lauriston Boubers

    "I drink my Champagne when I’m happy and when I’m sad. Sometimes I drink it when I'm alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I'm not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it - unless I'm thirsty.”
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