Not long ago a client came out to Champagne with me to choose the makers he wanted to work with. At one of the wineries, the owner greeted us himself and then spent the next two hours showing us round, explaining how he makes his champagne, and introducing members of his team. After that he sat us down in his private tasting room.
He makes a range of about ten champagnes. We tasted eight of them, with the bottles left open on the table so we could go back to an earlier one and taste it again against a later one, which is the only way anyone ever really compares anything.
It was a private welcome from the family into what you’d call the inner sanctum, for customers they’d decided to treat as such. The average tourist doesn’t get that. A paid visit means you follow a guide round, take some pictures and go on your way.
We came away on first name terms with the owner. My client can pick up the phone now, ring him, and know that the man at the other end knows exactly who he is and is glad to hear from him. Not many people ever get to do that, and in my view that falls squarely into the category of luxury.
He was out here making the first of a long series of decisions that will eventually add up to his own private champagne brand. Choosing the maker is one of them, and it’s a good deal more personal than choosing a supplier.
The offer nobody asked for
On another occasion, a maker that a different client had decided to work with offered, without anyone asking, the use of their premises. If my client ever wanted to bring a group of his own friends, guests or customers out here, he could hold a reception there. No charge beyond whatever catering he wanted.
I don’t remember the exact words. What I remember is how ordinary they made it sound. It was almost a matter of course, because of the close connection and the personal relationships that had already been established by then. The premises were there, at his disposal, should he ever want to use them.
And the premises are on the Avenue de Champagne in Épernay, which is the epicentre of the whole business, cheek by jowl with names anyone would recognise. There’s a courtyard outside, and at the back a view over the vineyards. It isn’t normally open to the public.
Think for a moment about what that lets a man say to his friends. Come out to Champagne with me. We’ll have a reception at my champagne maker’s, and there’ll be nobody there but us.
I’d rather say this plainly than let it be assumed. That offer belongs to that maker. There are plenty of makers I work with who aren’t on the Avenue de Champagne, and while I’d expect them to welcome guests just as warmly, a house on that particular avenue isn’t mine to promise anybody.
All of it comes from being on the inside and having that connection. And that generates a set of emotions very closely tied to what I’d call luxury.
Where the word has got to
There’s a long-running argument about what luxury actually means, and the most recent thinking has moved away from price altogether. It’s about experience. Something you take part in, something you feel part of, something that isn’t available to the majority of people. There’s time in it too, because everybody’s time is limited and how you choose to spend it matters.
Which is why I’d change the way this is usually put. People say luxury isn’t the same as expensive. I’d say luxury isn’t necessarily expensive. It can be. It just doesn’t have to be.
What four hundred euros actually buys
Ask me what somebody is buying when they pay four hundred euros for a famous label, and in most cases the answer is a feeling about themselves. Self worth. The sense of being special, of having a bit of inside knowledge. And for some people, the sense of being extravagant, ostentatious, of visibly demonstrating what they’ve got.
I’m not going to tell you they’re wrong to want it. Some of the prices the famous houses charge are beyond logic, and they’d tell you that luxury itself is beyond logic. Good luck to them if they find customers happy to pay those prices. That’s absolutely fine.
But other people get just as much satisfaction out of something rarer, probably less expensive, and known to very few. Somebody put it to me years ago and I’ve never come across a better way of saying it: not the best known, but known by the best. That sums up the contrast between the famous brands, whose price is justified as much by the fame as by what’s in the bottle, if not more, and everything else.
None of which lets anyone off on quality. The champagne has to be good, and that goes without saying. If it isn’t of sufficient quality it isn’t even in the game. Quality is the entry ticket rather than the thing that sets one brand apart from another, because at this level they’re all good.
The part the owner has to do
There’s a second half to this, and it’s what decides whether a private champagne brand works once it exists.
Everything above is luxury as the owner experiences it. The person who eventually buys a bottle experiences none of it. They weren’t in the tasting room, and they’ll never stand in that courtyard. So the owner has to pass it on, in words and in images: the same sense of belonging, the same sense of taking part in something that isn’t available to many people, and the history that sits behind it. Get that across to the consumer and they have something privileged too, something most people can’t reach, and that matters to them just as much.
There’s no price you can put on the experience itself. Owning your own private champagne brand, having personal connections with the people who make it, being able to go out there and be welcomed and understand what’s going on: it’s a luxury in its own right, and in my view it adds a dimension to a life.
If you’re thinking about a private champagne brand of your own, the useful next step is a conversation rather than a brochure. I’ll tell you what’s involved, what it’ll cost, and whether what you’ve got in mind will work. Book a call.
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