Founded in 1743, Moët et Chandon is probably one of the most iconic houses of Champagne that helped to make this nectar known throughout the world thanks to its unique wines: a brilliant fruitiness, a tasty palate and a maturity that shines through its elegance!
If we no longer present the Moët Impérial Brutwhich embodies all the values of the House, it is also the rosé champagne that distils in it a whole part of the House heritage.
The rosé as known in 20 years a drastic growth, making Moët one of the pioneers in this field, with one of the most complete ranges, faithful to the House’s style and signature.
A more than complete range, which invites to a remarkable gastronomic potential! Delicate and worked, Moët & Chandon rosés are a perfect match for dishes whose range seems limitless. Particularly successful this collaboration between the Chef de Cave Benoît Gouez and the Chef de la Maison Marco Fadiga awakens our taste buds and invites us to rethink our classics: Rosé goes perfectly with a very wide variety of dishes, no detail of which is left to chance! It is this precision and technique that make Moët & Chandon so strong.
In order to learn more about Moët & Chandon and more particularly its rosé champagnes, Icon-Icon met Benoît Gouez, Chef’s cave of the house since 2005 to know all their secrets.
Meeting with Benoît Gouez.
To begin and allow our readers to learn a little more about you, could you review your background?
Originally, I am not at all from the Champagne or wine milieu, I have on the contrary Breton roots and was raised in Normandy, so very far from wine.
I then have a rather scientific background, having allowed me to integrate the school of agronomy of Montpellier specialized in oenology. When I arrived at this great engineering school, I began to meet students and professors in viticulture and oenology. It is thus this specialty that has attracted me, or more fundamentally, three elements:
The first is the combination of science and sensitivity. I have a scientific background and I am an agronomy engineer, so I am a very Cartesian person. I consider that this balance between technique and sensitivity is particularly present in oenology. Defining myself as technical and sensitive at the same time, I’ve always been attracted to this combination.
The second is the cultural dimension of wine. This idea that wine is rooted in our traditions, that it is an element of our culture, of sharing. It is a sociological element, around which everyone exchanges. I find that wine is eminently sociable and social.
The last one is travel. As an oenologist I have had the opportunity to work in California, New Zealand, southern France and now in Champagne for almost twenty-five years. At the same time, when you open a bottle of wine that comes from a place, somewhere, you access that place and that idea of travel: it’s both real and virtual, a real experience
Also, I made my debut abroad and then in 1998, I had the opportunity to join Moët and Chandon during a meeting with Philippe Coulon, the director of the oenology of Moët and Chandon. On a day of alumni at school because we had done the same studies. After that, we decided to work together, he brought me in 1998 and today, it will soon be 25 harvests that Philippe retired.
Chef’s cellar at Moët et Chandon since 2005 how do you approach your profession in such a prestigious and ancient Champagne House?
I can understand my job in two different ways: my job is first what I do, how I do it. And it’s also my role in the organization and as a cellar manager.
When I exercise my profession, I involve a lot of science, knowledge, technique, mastery, precision, piloting. I need to be in control, even if this term is a bit excessive in the sense that we work with natural products with infinite variation related to our climate and other variables. So you have to have a fairly strong capacity to adapt.
I think mastery and precision are important. At Moët and Chandon, we have put in place structures, know-how and protocols that allow us to achieve this precision. However, every decision I make is based on experience, intuition and tasting that is something eminently personal and subjective since we do not do sensory analysis, we taste according to our own feelings. It is therefore always this balance between technical mastery and sensitivity that guides me.
As for my role as Chef’s cave, it is synonymous with a guide, a guide for a whole team because I do not work alone. It is a wealth of know-how and skills that make the Maison Moët et Chandon what it is.
I finally have the chance to be the conductor of all this, to have this role of guide, to give the vision and the projection and the direction we want to take.
At the same time, I have a watchdog role, since I am the heir somewhere to a heritage, a history, a know-how, a certain behaviour, what is called DNA. All this, I must pass on, the cellar manager is in a way a smuggler since the house being 280 years old next year, this one was there before us and will be after us. So this idea of transmission is important.
In short, I define myself as a guide, a guardian.
To pick up on this notion of heritage and address the issue of Rosé, it is often said that Maison Moët & Chandon is one of the pioneers in the field of Rosé Champagne, what inspires you?
My deep conviction is that rosé has always existed at Moët and Chandon because, in reality, champagne comes from clear and stained and colorful wine. The Champagne revolution, on the contrary, is the day when we began to make white wines and very clear wines from red grapes in order to avoid the task. So I think this type of wine has always existed.
When we look at the archives going back to 1801, we have access to an order from Napoleon for 100 rosé bottles from Moët and Chandon. Napoleon’s mother also ordered 100 bottles of rosé, so this is the oldest trace we have.
However, my personal belief is that there was already “rosé”, “partridge eye” or “stained” in the terminology of the time. Then and for a very long time, rosé champagne remained very confidential, because finally there was the possibility of making clear or white wines with these red grapes, which in most cases are not mature enough to make red wines. That is to say, to make a good red wine, it takes quite high levels of tannic maturity and the Champagne region because of its climate did not allow this so easily and regularly. For a long time, rosé champagne was produced only in vintage years, that is, the best years, the most mature, the healthiest, the most propitious years.
Twenty years ago, Rosé represented only 2 to 3% of the production, today it is more than 10% in champagne and 20% at Moët & Chandon. How do you explain this spectacular growth of Champagne Rosé?
When I went back to Moët and Chandon, rosé champagne represented only 2 or 3% of the production and it was not until the mid-1990s that my predecessors, including Dominique Foulon, had this intuition. Was he already aware of climate change or was he already benefiting from it? I couldn’t say, but he made the Champagne Rosé bet. Between this, the improvement of viticultural practices and an intuition in line with increased consumer demand, Dominica began to really invest in the creation of the imperial non vintage rosé.
It requires that it be developed every year and on an extremely constant basis. This represents a great challenge, and a real challenge, which denotes vintage vintages, which are not systematically declared, and which can freely evolve over the years. This is still a very important degree of constraint, but this intuition and this confidence have triggered a dynamic that has led us to invest in the vineyard, in technical installations, in know-how, in people, and then to accompany this growth that we are experiencing today.
From now on, rosé champagne represents about 10% of the total production in Champagne and for Moët and Chandon, we are already above 20% of our production which represents a leadership and quite spectacular growth.
Earlier, you were talking about DNA at Moët and Chandon. You present different cuvées of Champagne Rosé, all with their particularity but with the signature of the house, what is this signature?
It is difficult to answer in a universal way because we do not have a Champagne Rosé but several with each its peculiarities.
If I try to identify the peculiarities of the rosé champagnes Moët and Chandon, I would say that what is common is the intensity, the intensity of color, aromatic and taste.
These rosés are quite colorful and present in tne mouth. I think it is important that, at first glance, we understand that this is rosé champagne. Recognition goes first through the look, then the dress and then the aromatic and taste.
The first pillar of the style Moët et Chandon is a fruty and vivid wine. Our ambition is that our champagnes have the taste of the grapes from which they come, that is to say the taste of the fruit in the most raw, crisp way possible. By closing your eyes, the goal is to immediately have an image that appears: a basket of fruits. Small red fruits for the imperial rosé, perhaps a little darker fruit, deep for the Vintage and a little more solar, sweeter for the pink nectar.
These are pretty images to illustrate…
The Rosé Impérial is obviously the best known of all, the Grand Vintage Rosé 2013 bears your personal signature and the Ice Impérial Rosé represents a new tasting experience. Could you come back on these 3 alliances?
The imperial rosé would be rather in tenderness, in flexibility, a form of accessibility, spontaneity, immediacy because it is ultimately more a rosé champagne of spring aperitif, of picnic, in a rather light atmosphere rather tender, fairly easy to access.
Where the rosé vintage is more serious, deeper and marked by the pinot noir with a more gastronomic wine character, with more maturity too. Therefore, there is a spicier and darker character.
Finally with the Ice Impérial rosé we are in this idea of consumption of day, summer with ice, in a very informal register, very spontaneous, even before the aperitif in return for the beach, something casual, rather relaxed.
Each as, in fact, its moment and position.
Since we are in the experiments, if we choose a Grand Vintage Rosé 2013, what would be the ideal context to taste it?
To me, it is a rosé of gastronomy, which calls to eat, to be accompanied because it has this rather dark aromatic complexity, quite spicy with a mouth that is really marked by its pinot noir culture.
Vinified in 2013, there is a presence of quite marked tastes with bitterness that actually call to be associated with things, a little more elaborate.
It is the opposite of an aperitif rosé for a light moment with friends, it is something that requires a little more time, to be in a moment more centered on the wine.
Where the imperial rosé can also be gastronomic but in a much lighter register like salads, carpaccios, tartares, this spirit a little Mediterranean and Italian of colorful products, tasty but very simple, with a lot of freshness and a moment of sharing, rather on a picnic mode than gastronomic.
Returning to gastronomy and Champagnes Rosés, Chef Marco Fadiga offers exceptional culinary experiences around rosé wines, can you tell us a little bit about that?
It is a particular work because often, we tend to tune the dishes through the ingredients and to say such champagne goes well with holy scallops, with beef, with this or that. In fact, our approach is not so much on the ingredient, but on principles that have been established, specifically five principles that lead to a sixth.
The first is what is called chromaticity, that is to say that I consider that the aromas have colors, and that we can thus describe each champagne by its colors. In this case, if I speak of Imperial Moët it is white, yellow, green. If I take the Imperial Rosé, it is light pink with a small spicy black shade and a larger green shade that contrasts on the red. So somewhere, the first link we have at the table with wine is the visual. It is important to ensure that on the plate, the colours and ingredients are in line with the colours of the wine’s aromas.
Then there is one point that is very important to me, and that is simplicity. I find that it is always easy to add things, the most complicated is to remove them until that’s it, everything stands. I think it’s a more interesting exercise to limit ourselves, that’s all the difficulty for an Italian leader. I challenge him to use only three ingredients in his recipes, that is to say a main ingredient, a complementary ingredient and a contrast ingredient. This means that when you have this obligation, this constraint, you have to be absolutely demanding with regard to the quality of your ingredients.
Then, the cooking must be absolutely perfect. Champagne for me calls for no or little cooking, or especially undercooking. Every time you flip into the dry, there is a disagreement. The effervescence hinders the desired dialogue between the products. Always keep a form of juiciness in the elements used, especially the main ones.
Another element that is very important, including on pink champagnes, is salinity. Often, there is this idea that a rosé champagne is fruity and therefore sweet, which we would then associate with a dessert. This is one of the biggest mistakes we can make because a rosé champagne can be fruity, but not necessarily sweet. In our range, whether it is a Moët Impérial that is dosed at seven grams per liter or a Grand vintage that is dosed at five grams per liter, these are very raw or extra raw champagnes that do not like sugar at all.
Naturally in Champagne, we have four of the five primary flavors: acidity; bitterness due to our grapes, very important for red wines to blend on rosé champagnes; this idea of umami, this tasty character that comes from maturation on yeast; a touch of sweetness through the dosage; and finally the only one of the five flavours missing in the champagne: salinity. I consider that with more modern raw champagnes, the vault key, the point of balance is made through this salinity, playing with reductions, saline elements that can be seaweed for example.
To conclude, I think that champagne is a great wine and a little more, that is to say that there is a quality that is the effervescence with which one must know how to play, which one must know how to put forward. Often, this effervescence requires a texture, crunch, crisp so there is a little bit of mache and a little restraint if you are in something too soft.
To sum up: chromaticity, simplicity, salinity, texture and cooking are the five principles that we work on and that must lead to dialogue. What is interesting is that when one stimulates the other, one stimulates the other, and when we finally discover wine when it comes together, that is more what guides us than a strictly ingredient-based approach.
Icon-Icon was born from the idea that iconic brands are often made with iconic products, in this case I think when we talk about Moët and Chandon, we’re talking about an iconic brand in champagne. What is the absolute icon of your House?
Obviously, this is Imperial Moët, for me there is no discussion.
It is the core of the reactor, the center of the galaxy and all the others have been inspired and gravitate around it.
If I had to take one to retreat to a desert island, it would be the Imperial Moët. It is the classis, the one that for 150 years now has made the reputation and success of the House. Even today, even if we are lucky enough to have a very beautiful portfolio, well diversified with each product of our range that is the leader in its category, however, the Moët Imperial, if there were only one left it would be it.
This is the one we find the most among our consumers because it is also – perhaps its first quality – to be the most beloved champagne in the world, not to say the most sold in the world. It is a champagne that is eminently versatile, it has an ability to adapt, to give pleasure whatever the circumstances, not needing very specific circumstances, to be appreciated. Which can be the case of a vintage, because it has a personality more typified, more singular, more charismatic, it needs perhaps the glass that goes well, puts it well, the guests that go well, the moment that goes well, the atmosphere to be fully appreciated.
Moët Imperial is a bit of an all-terrain champagne, it is the most complete champagne in terms of construction, assembly, it is the one that has integrated, in the most balanced way the three grape varieties of Champagne, it is the one that has the maximum of Champagne crus and with a very precise and complete construction at the same time.
He has an ability to always have an answer, that is to say if you like the structure: there are elements of pinot noir structure that are there, this very complete character gives him his versatility which can be described asno brainer. It’s obvious, and even today after 25 years in the House, every time I open a bottle of Moët Impérial I have a little smile on my face because I know I’m going to enjoy myself and I won’t be in the intellectual dimension, but in the dimension of taste and in the emotional dimension. Moët and Chandon are spontaneity, pleasure, sharing, love, with generosity and the one who most embodies all these values is indeed the Imperial Moët.
You must want to open the fridge all the time… Do one need a particular occasion?
I do not need to wait for a specific occasion to please myself, I consider that we must find opportunities to please each other every day. That doesn’t mean I drink Moët Impérial every day, but to put it differently, you don’t have to wait for a special occasion to open a bottle of Moët et Chandon and indulge yourself. By opening a bottle of Moët and Chandon, you make the occasion special if not every day, very regularly! By opening a bottle of Moët and Chandon, you make the occasion special if not every day, very regularly!
Do you have an object, a smell, an iconic experience for you that is just extraordinary?
actually, I am not at all materialistic. I like objects, I like to have things, but there is not something I keep especially since I was 5 years old.
We are more in the realm of feeling. If I’m not a materialist, I’m a very faithful person, I’m fairly rooted in my origins, and if I close my eyes, if I say to myself, “Where would you like to be?” I would return to my native Brittany by the sea, this wind, this iodine, from the land of North Finistère. If there were to be something associated with it, I would say it was the lobster that my grandfather fished. The atmosphere would rather be this one, the seaside where there is life, movement, this iodized character, this form of freedom, of freshness. If I need to go and recharge, that’s where I’m going. So it’s not an object but a place, a feeling, an atmosphere.
Interview by Sébastien Girard, President of Icon-Icon and Saskia Blanc.
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