| Heidsieck & Co | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Wine region | Reims |
| Appellation | Champagne (wine region) |
| Known for | Cuvée Brut (non-vintage) Rare Vintage |
| Varietals | Pinot Noir , Chardonnay , Pinot Meunier |
| Website | http://www.heidsieckandco-monopole.com |
Heidsieck & Co "Monopole" is a champagne house located in the Champagne region of France.
It was founded in 1785 by Florens-Louis Heidsieck. Following the death of the founder in 1828, the successors were his relatives Henri-Louis Walbaum, Frédéric-Auguste Delius and Christian Heidsieck.
In 1838 after several disagreements, the three nephews decide to part ways. Henri Louis Walbaum (1813–1883) continued the business alone, joining forces with his brother-in-law Auguste Heidsieck (1796–1870). The company name therefore changed to "Walbaum Heidsieck & Co." [1]
In 1860 Henri Louis Walbaum and Auguste Heidsieck established the trademark "Monopole". Following the death of Auguste Heidsieck, in 1870 the company Veuve Heidsieck et Co., heirs to Heidsieck & Co, operated under the leadership of his widow for a few years. Her successor was Florens Walbaum, who became the first chairman of the Syndicat du Commerce des Vins de Champagne from 1882 until his death in 1893. [1]
The company name changed again to "Heidsieck & Co." in 1882 . Following several other name changes, in 1889, the company became "Walbaum, Luling, Goulden & Co, successeurs d'Heidsieck & CO" in 1889. It received an imperial warrant of appointment to the Russian court. In 1907 the company name becomes “Walbaum Goulden & Co, successeurs d’Heidsieck & Co, Maison fondée en 1785″. The company received an imperial and royal warrant of appointment for the Austro-Hungarian court.
In 1923 Édouard Mignot, founder of the grocery store chain “Les Comptoirs Français” acquires the company, which then becomes "Champagne Heidsieck & Co Monopole SA".
1956 After the Second World War, in 1956 the Champagne Academy in London is founded with "Heidsieck & Co Monopole" as one of the founding members.
In 1998, the Hiedsieck cuvée called Diamant bleu vintage 1907 was found in the shipwreck of the Swedish freighter Jönköping in the Gulf of Finland, the ship was chartered to deliver spirits, via neutral Sweden, to the Imperial Court of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. [2] The ship was torpedoed in 1916 by a German submarine during World War I and a majority of the bottles survived in the frigid waters. [3] About 2000 bottles were salvaged from the ship and have been sold at auctions all over the world as a historic novelty. [4] [5]
In July 2010, a group of Swedish divers found 168 bottles from the 1830s aboard a shipwreck in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Åland. [6] [7] [8] The bottles were initially claimed to have been produced between 1782 and 1788. They were sent for analysis to France where they were traced to a now-defunct champagne house Juglar. In November 2010 it was reported that the wreck included Veuve Clicquot bottles as well. [9] [10] Veuve Clicquot stated that experts checking branding of the corks "were able to identify with absolute certainty" that three of the bottles were theirs. The other bottles examined were attributed to Juglar. [10]
In January 2011 further info about the Åland bottles was released. 95 of them were identified as Juglar, 46 as Veuve Clicquot and at least four as Heidsieck. [11]
On November 17 the provincial government of the Åland Islands announced that most of the bottles were to be auctioned off. Two bottles of the Juglar were sold in the first auction, one going for 24,000 euros. Six bottles of the Juglar were sold at a second auction in 2012, along with four of the Veuve Clicquot and one of the Heidsieck. The profit from the auctions is being used for the improvement of water quality in the Baltic Sea and for research in marine archaeology and naval history. [12]
Today, Heidsieck is owned by the Vranken-Pommery Monopole Group (located in Reims), which also owns Pommery, Vranken, Château la Gordonne, Domaine Royal de Jarras, and Rozès. The champagne has a lot of pinot noir in the standard cuvée which makes it a little bit heavier in its style.
Champagne is a sparkling wine originated and produced in the Champagne wine region of France under the rules of the appellation, that demand specific vineyard practices, sourcing of grapes exclusively from designated places within it, specific grape-pressing methods and secondary fermentation of the wine in the bottle to cause carbonation.
Sparkling wine is a wine with significant levels of carbon dioxide in it, making it fizzy. While the phrase commonly refers to champagne, European Union countries legally reserve that term for products exclusively produced in the Champagne region of France. Sparkling wine is usually either white or rosé, but there are examples of red sparkling wines such as the Italian Brachetto, Bonarda and Lambrusco, and the Australian sparkling Shiraz. The sweetness of sparkling wine can range from very dry brut styles to sweeter doux varieties.
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Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin is a Champagne house founded in 1772 and based in Reims. It is one of the largest Champagne houses. Madame Clicquot is credited with major breakthroughs, creating the first known vintage champagne in 1810, and inventing the riddling table process to clarify champagne in 1816. In 1818, she invented the first known blended rosé champagne by blending still red and white wines, a process still used by the majority of champagne producers.
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Bollinger is a French Champagne house, a producer of sparkling wines from the Champagne region. They produce several labels of Champagne under the Bollinger name, including the vintage Vieilles Vignes Françaises, Grande Année and R.D. as well as the non-vintage Special Cuvée. Founded in 1829 in Aÿ by Hennequin de Villermont, Paul Renaudin and Jacques Bollinger, the house continues to be run by members of the Bollinger family. In Britain, Bollinger Champagnes are affectionately known as "Bolly".
Armand de Brignac, known colloquially as Ace of Spades, is a French Champagne owned by Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter and LVMH. The brand is produced by Champagne Cattier and sold in opaque metallic bottles. The brand's first bottling, Armand de Brignac Brut Gold, is identifiable by its gold bottle with French pewter Ace of Spades labels.
Champagne Lanson is a Champagne producer that is based in Reims in the Champagne region. Since 2006, it has been owned by the Lanson-BCC group that is headed by Bruno Paillard.
Ruinart is the oldest established Champagne house, exclusively producing champagne since 1729. Founded by Nicolas Ruinart in the Champagne region in the city of Reims, the house is today owned by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA.
Piper-Heidsieck is a Champagne house founded by Florens-Louis Heidsieck on 16 July 1785 in Reims. Heidsieck joined with Piper in October 1839. In the late 1980s, Piper-Heidsieck became part of the Rémy Cointreau wine and spirits group. It was sold in 2011 to Européenne de Participation Industrielle, a privately owned holding company of French luxury brands.
Petit Meslier is a rare white wine grape that is a minor component of some Champagne blends. It is valued for its ability to retain acidity even in hot vintages. In the very rare cases where it is not blended, it makes crisp wines tasting of apples. The Traminer family of grapes can be difficult to grow, with poor disease resistance and low yields.
Champagne Salon is a small producer of Champagne made in the blanc de blancs style. Salon, along with Delamotte, is part of the Laurent-Perrier group since 1989.
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Canard-Duchêne is a Champagne house founded in 1868 and currently part of the Thiénot group, owner of its own label Champagne Thiénot, plus Joseph Perrier and Marie Stuart.
The history of Champagne began when the Romans planted vineyards in this region of northeast France in the 5th century, or possibly earlier. Over centuries, Champagne evolved from being a pale, pinkish still wine to a sparkling wine. When Hugh Capet was crowned King of France in 987 at the cathedral of Reims, he started a tradition that brought successive monarchs to the region—with the local wine being on prominent display at the coronation banquets. The early wine of the Champagne region was a pale, pinkish wine made from Pinot noir.
Jacquesson & Fils is a Champagne producer based in the Dizy region of Champagne. The house was founded in Châlons-sur-Marne in 1798 by Memmie Jacquesson. The house makes the claim it is the oldest independent Champagne house.
Florens-Louis Heidsieck (1749–1828) was the founder of the Champagne house Heidsieck & Co from which later Piper-Heidsieck was spun off, and which was the start of the Heidsieck Champagne clan. Heidsieck was the son of a Lutheran minister from Westphalia, and had moved to Reims to work as a cloth merchant. In Reims, he went into winemaking and started producing his own wine in 1780.
The Föglö wreck is a shipwreck of a 19th-century two-masted schooner lying in the waters off Föglö near Åland in Finland. It became famous in the summer of 2010 as several bottles of what was then considered to be world's oldest drinkable champagne were raised from the wreck. However the analysis carried out by Veuve Clicquot in 2018 deemed the champagne undrinkable.
Media related to Heidsieck & Co at Wikimedia Commons
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