A week of celebration for the opening of a new barrel cellar and the launch of the two Grande Année 2018 cuvées, white and rosé; a special edition of 45 years of partnership with the James Bond films; a new hotel in Champagne set to launch in 2028 and the big 200th anniversary celebrations in 2029 – Bollinger is all big news and glamour right now. But behind the scenes, this prestigious French Champagne house – family-owned for 200 years – has a passion for craftsmanship, family heritage and tradition.
In 1822, Joseph Bollinger moved from Germany, along with other Germans, including Johann-Josef Krug and the Heidsiecks, to work in the Champagne region. Bollinger changed his first name to Jacques, and along with two other partners, his father-in-law Hennequin de Villermont and Paul Levieux Renaudin, founded their own Champagne house, Bollinger-Renaudin, in 1829. Descendants of Jacques Bollinger, Etienne Bizot and Charles-Armand de Belenet still run the house today.
I accepted a recent invitation to the grand opening of the new barrel cellar, and a tasting of the new vintage revealed both appreciation for family history and the team of individuals who make the wines.
The heart of Champagne Bollinger
Underneath the 19th-century house, with its white limestone walls and red brick trim, lies the heart of Champagne Bollinger. Six kilometres of cellars, reached by a flight of 49 steps, were first excavated in the 1820s. The long, dimly lit tunnels, with galleries or ‘rooms’, have 99 per cent humidity and a cool, constant temperature. Here, the wines slowly mature, both before and after blending, with a storage capacity of just over 4,000 barrels and over 12 million bottles, including 700,000 magnums. Silent rows of pupitres (wooden racks), where the top wines are hand riddled by two remuers (riddlers), Olivier Lannez and Nicolas Marchand, under the watchful eye of Florent Michel, who has been doing the job for 40 years, who rotate the bottles of top champagne 90 degrees at great speed, to move the yeast in the bottle, checked by candlelight.
Down here, there are also locked cellars of archived wines (rediscovered in 2010) dating back almost 200 years. There is a secret joy in finding your birth year on an old dusty bin or label, as if somehow capturing the essence of a summer you never knew.
Up until the 1970s, barrels were much more commonly used, but with the advent of modern vinification in stainless steel tanks, they fell out of fashion. Unusually, Bollinger retained the tradition of using barrels and today has the largest barrel cellar in Champagne. Gaël Chaunut, the in-house cooper since 2021, looks after their current stock of 4,350 barrels, renovating 200-400 barrels a year as they age. The barrels come from Bollinger’s estate Domaine Chanson in Côte de Beaune, where, after four to five years, the used 228l barrels are brought to Champagne.
