'To keep freshness and elegance – this is my work' – Laurent-Perrier and the art of Grand Siècle

Deep in the Laurent-Perrier cellars, oenologist Constance Delaire stands in front of a row of eerily smooth, flawless tanks installed by Michel Fauconnet, the long-serving predecessor of new cellar master Olivier Vigneron.

‘There are no seams in the steel,’ she says, the tanks glowing like perfect mirrors in the dim light. ‘Michel was so afraid of oxidation that he had them made this way.’

Vigneron strolls in, looking like a man on a mission. ‘Sorry to miss the start, but I have been in the United States for three weeks and the wines require my attention.’

I remember this interaction eight months later, as Vigneron and I sit down in London to mark the release of the latest iteration of Laurent Perrier’s utterly distinct prestige cuvée Grand Siècle.

His admission as we settle in that he is a ‘chef de cave des caves’ – a cellar master of the cellars, as opposed to the media rooms and airport lounges – rings true.

The new release – Itération 27 – marks a year since Vigneron took charge at the family-run house.

Laurent-Perrier’s modern success is built on the legacy of Vigneron’s mentor, Fauconnet, a man very much in the same mould.

‘Every house has a different culture – some cellar masters are more communicator than technician,’ Vigneron says.

‘But here the job is about keeping the idea of what Laurent-Perrier is, to guard the history of the maison as I was trained by Michel, and to keep freshness and elegance – this is my work.’

Kept in reserve

Work, it must be said, is already familiar to Vigneron, who was appointed to the house in 2004 after four years as a winemaking assistant within Laurent-Perrier’s sister house De Castellane, just three years after completing his studies in Reims.

Hailing from Bergères-les-Vertus in the Côte des Blancs, where Vigneron’s wife grows and produces Champagne Perrot-Batteux, Vigneron is the definition of a continuity candidate.

Continuity may be the order of the day, but that doesn’t translate to standing still.

Today’s Champagne winemakers have to deliver consistency in extremes of climate arguably never seen before, relying ever more on their greatest asset – their store of reserve wines, whose varied attributes can complement whatever nature throws up.

‘Knowledge of the reserves is critical to the job,’ says Vigneron, whose cellar after a harvest is made up not just of 700 tanks of that year’s wine, but also a remarkable 300 of reserve wines from previous harvests. All of these must be tasted, assessed and directed to blends or further storage.

For anyone wanting to taste a snapshot of this work, in 2024 Laurent-Perrier released the Héritage cuvée (£65-£80), a wine with a makeup not normally seen in Champagne: 100% reserve wines, with no young base year in the blend.

‘In being all about the reserves, it keeps the spirit of Grand Siècle,’ Vigneron says, although there is ‘more freedom’ to make Héritage than there is with the multi-vintage Grand Siècle that tops the portfolio, which must be a blend of only three vintages.

Two years on from the Héritage release, it has developed beautifully.

‘We’re really seeing the effects of double maturation, first in the reserve tanks and then in the bottles,’ says Vigneron.

The art of the blend

It’s in the Grand Siècle itself, though, that Vigneron’s art reaches its pinnacle. ‘The aim is to recreate the perfect year,’ Vigneron says of the concept that has been in place since 1959, ‘not just to blend together three consecutive vintages.’

In theory only vintages bottled individually as Laurent-Perrier Millésime can be used as ingredients for Grand Siècle (although hawk-eyed fans may spot an outlier in the current release), but even these are kept back as separate components, presenting Vigneron with a highly complex blending task when the decision is made to create an iteration.

Itération 27 contains 65% of the generally sunny and very hot 2015 vintage.

‘Chardonnay had a lot of generosity and needed balancing with vintages of vivacity and tension,’ Vigneron says.

The vintages that make up the blend, 2013 and 2012, seem to elevate the wine far beyond where most 2015 vintages alone can reach. ‘It’s a work of great precision – we can’t force it.’

While the Millésime Brut 2018 bottling (£72-£80), which has also just been released to the market, seems likely to feature in future Grand Siècle iterations, it’s worth noting that Laurent-Perrier didn’t make vintage Champagnes from 2016, 2014, 2013, 2010 or 2009, all of which were widely released by other houses.

It’s a restraint that has served this discreet maison well.

‘The family ownership means there are no obligations,’ Vigneron points out. ‘The wines can lead us.’

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