A few years’ ago a few of us joined buyer Sarah Knowles MW for lunch with Hubert de Billy, the fifth generation in charge of his family Champagne house, Pol Roger. For those also fortunate enough to have experienced Hubert in full flow, you’ll know that he is not just a great ambassador of Pol Roger and Champagne in general, but also a wonderful raconteur. Hubert asked those assembled if they were aware of the ‘real history of Champagne’ and if we were curious why there were so many Germanic-sounding Champagne houses.
The region has a long history of winemaking, but it was wool not wine that originally attracted wealthy merchants to set up shop here. The clue, Hubert told us, is in the name. Champagne comes from the Latin campania referring to the flat, open land (champ is French for field), not the vine-strewn slopes and the magical drink we usually associate with the word. The chalky flat land was not suited to crops and was only good for grazing sheep.
Reims, the historic capital of Belgian Gaul (when Paris was just a village) owes its prosperity to the wool trade which flourished further under the Romans. And it was the Romans who brought vines to the region (what did the Romans ever do for us…?!). Centuries later, the wine merchants were considered upstart Johnny-come-latelys by the wool and cloth merchant establishment.
At the crossroads of the continent
Champagne’s geographical position meant it has served as a crossroads for merchants, migrants and pilgrims, and been the site of fierce battles. Wine took off with the Romans (some argue it was made here before, too) but it wasn’t the most important product of the region – although it was probably a delightful change for Romans whose own wine was notoriously mixed with spices, herbs and even seawater!
The Champagne district later became the centre of the monastic movement which gained force around the 7th century. Monks snapped up the best land for vines, making wine for the eucharist but also for daily drinking and to sell. They provided bed and board to travellers, many of whom came to the region to trade in cloth and other valuables. This helped spread the renown of the wine even before it became ‘the wine of kings’.
The wine of this era wasn’t fizzy and neither was it white; most likely, it was a very pale red, or oeil de perdrix (partridge eye), as the French call it. But merchants travelling through the region would return to their homelands with barrels of wine to trade alongside the wool on their carts. When the weather warmed, the wine was found to sparkle, and German merchants in particular developed a taste for it.
Wool merchant side-hustle
How to achieve the fizz was a mystery (and bottling it an even greater conundrum) and the topic for a completely different tale. But German wool merchants had already become well established in the Champagne region, so it’s not a stretch to imagine them developing a side trade. One of the major obstacles was the law (isn’t that always the case?).
Various laws and edicts sought to control the trade and make money out of it. Following harsh winters, royal edicts restricted the planting of vines and insisted that more wheat was grown to feed the population. This was tough on grape growers for whom vines were the only source of income.
Champagne fell in and out of fashion, too, and found itself in competition with Burgundy. Unable to compete with the fuller reds of this more southerly region, the Champenois fell back on the wine’s singular trump card – the fact that it would often naturally sparkle.
Magic sparkle – the birth of the modern trade
In this northerly region, grapes were picked in late autumn and there wasn’t enough time for all the sugars to be converted into alcohol by the yeasts on the grape skins before they become dormant as the cold set in. When the warmer weather arrived in the spring (or when the wines were transported south), the yeasts revived and the wines started to referment, creating the fizz. Being able to control this process and bottle it was revolutionary.
Skipping ahead to the 18th century, further decrees standardised both wine quality and the bottles and closures (exploding bottles were an expensive and dangerous problem), laying foundations for the modern trade. Only the privileged few had the right to transport bottled wine, obviously hampering competition, so when this law was scrapped in 1735 some local merchants were quick to take advantage.
The first Champagne house
Nicolas Ruinart, a textile merchant from Epernay, founded the first Champagne house in 1729. Many merchants from Reims followed suit (Cliquot was a draper and banker before becoming a Champagne house). This period also saw the arrival of many German immigrants to the region. Connections already existed through the wool trade but many of the new Champagne houses employed young polyglot Germans to help with sales abroad. Several of these smart young things eventually branched out on their own and set up their own houses – Krug, Bollinger, Deutz and Mumm, to name drop just a few.
Family connections
Another classic case in point is Heidsieck, which may have been front of mind when Hubert de Billy was talking to us – his elder sister Evelyne is married to Loic Heidsieck. Florenz-Louis Heidsieck, came to Reims in 1777 from Schleswig-Holstein in search of commercial experience and made friends with a wool merchant (a M. Perthois), and more significantly with his daughter Agathe, whom he married in 1785. The same year he founded the firm of Heidsieck & Co, dealing in vins et tissus (woven fabrics). In time, four German nephews came to join the growing company, from which the Piper and Charles Heidsieck companies of today are ultimately descended. Indeed, Pol Roger’s only daughter, Lucie Marie Pol-Roger, married Emile Français, a textile merchant from Epernay.
But it is Pol’s great-great-grandson, Hubert de Billy, whom we must thank for sending us down this fascinating historical rabbit hole. It seems that the story of wine and wool are inextricably interwoven and unpicking the threads has been both enlightening and entertaining. A glass of something cold and fizzy is called for as a reward!
>>Look out for the up-coming release of Pol Roger’s famous Cuvée Winston Churchill being launched as a First Release.
Thanks are also due to Bill Gunn MW for help with research and Patrick Forbes’ Champagne: The Wine, the Land and the People and Nicholas Faith’s The Story of Champagne’, which helped us link elements of the story together.
