Michel Drappier popped open a bottle of champagne the minute his first baby was born. Then he did the same for the second. And third.
“It’s a tradition,” he chuckles. “I put one drop of champagne on my finger, and into the baby’s mouth.” He smiles, “The reaction is always the same. The baby stops crying and looks amazed. Then starts to cry again. This time for more champagne,” he winks, before adding with mock sternness, “We say, ‘No. Wait till you turn 18’.”
At the Park Hyatt to preside over an elegant champagne dinner, featuring four different styles of bubbly from his label, Michel chats about his heritage. Considered one of the world’s finest boutique champagne producers, the house, founded in 1808, prides itself on creating champagne that is defiantly authentic.
“We use the least sulphur in the region,” he says, popping open a bottle of fresh and flinty Blanc de Blancs Signature. “This is for purely selfish reasons,” he quips. “My father is allergic to sulphur, and he drinks a bottle of champagne a day. We make wines we like — so if we can’t sell what we produce, we can drink it ourselves!”
In the meantime, they’re making an effort to be as natural and organic as possible. “By next year, we will be the first champagne house to have a zero carbon footprint.”
Credited for being forward thinking, when it comes to the environment, Michel says it became especially important to him when his daughter was born. “It was in 1989, and I remember thinking, ‘There’s a new generation coming. We must clean up the planet’.”
Going organic has made a significant difference to their product, he says. “It has reduced the quantity of the yield per hectare by probably 10 to 20 per cent. It has also increased the acidity, which is good. It gives freshness; the aromas are more natural… It’s more fruit oriented. More concentrated.”
There are currently about 5,000 brands of champagne in the market now. “Some are very old. We are among the 30 oldest,” says Michel, “And every generation brings something new to the labels.”
As consumers change the way they approach the drink, winemakers are adapting their products to suit the market. “More and more people now drink champagne with dinner — like a wine. It’s not just for parties, disco and cabaret,” says Michel. “It is made with great skills, and consumers are discovering that. They enjoy it drier, with more variations than taste. They’re willing to experiment, instead of just drinking a famous label.”
It’s a good place to be for his label. “Our champagne is very authentic. It’s close to terroir. It’s not sweet. So, sometimes, people find it difficult to drink.” He continues, “Drappier has a distinct flavour because our terroir is unique. Because of the measure of Pinot Noir we use. The type of yeast. You can recognise it immediately; and you either like it or hate it.”
The label is small, but proud. “We are forty times smaller than most labels. And we are not marketing people at all. We just produce champagne we like. What we create is the extraction of our climate, the soul of our village… We make it the best way we can, and once we are done, we bottle it.”
In search of new markets, his mission is fairly complicated, since the label is determinedly niche. “My goal is to find people across the planet who enjoy the product we create, exactly the way it is. We are not democratic. We are not mass market. But that’s okay. For everyone else, there are 4,999 other champagnes to choose from.”
