Armand de Brignac
It was supplied in a golden metallic-coloured bottle with a hand-applied tin ‘Ace of Spades’ label and, from the very beginning, was associated with one of the biggest names in the world of music. Armand de Brignac, or ‘Ace of Spades’ as it quickly came to be known, appeared on the market in 2006 and has since strived to be taken seriously as a champagne, rather than merely as a celebrity accessory. On the whole, it has succeeded.
History
The story behind the label is a family story with an unexpected twist. The Cattier family has been growing grapes in the Montagne de Reims region for over 250 years: Jean-Jacques Cattier represents the 12th generation, and his son Alexandre the 13th. The name ‘de Brignac’ was originally registered back in the 1950s by Jean-Jacques’s mother, Nelly Cattier, who came across it in a novel she was reading and decided it sounded good. It lay dormant for decades until, in the early 2000s, Jean-Jacques decided to revive it in her memory as part of a new prestigious project. The name ‘Armand’ was added at the request of the French regulatory authorities to avoid confusion with the village of Brignac in Brittany, located not far from the Champagne region.
American rapper and entrepreneur Jay-Z brought the brand global fame when a gold bottle appeared in his 2006 music video. He officially acquired the brand in 2014, and in 2021 sold a 50 per cent stake to Moët Hennessy, LVMH’s wine and spirits division, resulting in the brand becoming a joint venture between Jay-Z and the French luxury goods group. The Cattier family continues to produce every bottle.
Vineyards
The Cattier family owns 33 hectares of vineyards in the Montagne de Reims region, centred around the villages of Rilly-la-Montagne, Chigny-le-Rose and Lud. In addition to its own vineyards, the team sources grapes from carefully selected winegrowers in other villages across the region, including Grand and Premier Cru plots in Verzenay, Verzy, May-Champagne and Côte des Blancs. All of the estate’s own vineyards hold HVE Level 3 certification, the highest sustainability rating awarded by the French government.
Terroir
‘Montagne de Reims’ is the land of Pinot Noir: its north-facing chalky slopes yield some of the most structured and aromatic black grapes in Champagne. The ‘Cote des Blancs’, situated to the south, contributes Chardonnay with mineral precision and refinement. The use of grapes from both regions, as well as from selected plots elsewhere, lends the Armand de Brignac range a breadth of character across its various cuvées.
Grapes
All three classic Champagne grape varieties, Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay, are used throughout the range. The flagship Brut Gold champagne is a blend of all three varieties. The Blanc de Blancs is made from 100 per cent Chardonnay, whilst the Blanc de Noirs is made from 100 per cent Pinot Noir from Premier Cru and Grand Cru villages. In the ‘Rosé’, 18 per cent of still red wine, made from old Pinot Noir vines in Montagne de Reims, is added to the final blend.
Winemaking
Armand de Brignac’s approach in the cellar is guided by three principles. Firstly, only the very first and freshest part of each pressin, the ‘cuvée’, is used, whilst the later, heavier pressings, which most producers include in their blends, are discarded. Secondly, each cuvée is a blend of three separate vintages rather than a single harvest, which helps to maintain consistency in character from one release to the next whilst reflecting the best of each year. Thirdly, the dosage, the final addition of wine to regulate sweetness and flavour complexity, is made using still wine aged for one year in new French oak barrels, which imparts a delicate hint of baked goods and vanilla. Each bottle is then aged on its lees in the cellars for several years before disgorgement.
Wines
The range currently comprises five cuvées.
‘Brut Gold’ is the flagship range, a multi-vintage blend of all three Champagne grape varieties.
‘Rosé’ is dominated by Pinot Noir from old vines in the Montagne de Reims.
‘Demi-Sec’ is positioned as the world’s only prestige-level champagne in the ‘Demi-Sec’ category.
‘Blanc de Blancs’ is crafted from grapes sourced from both the Côte des Blancs and the Montagne de Reims.
‘Blanc de Noir’, meanwhile, is a wine range produced in very small batches, with each bottle individually numbered and available worldwide in extremely limited quantities.
Large-format bottles, ranging from magnums to 30-litre ‘Midas’ bottles, are available across the entire range upon special request. Each bottle is metallised by hand, and the tin labels are applied individually at a rate of around 20 bottles per person per hour, meaning that no two bottles are exactly alike.
The largest Champagne bottles in the world
Large format champagne bottles run from a 1.5-litre magnum up to the 30-litre Midas, a format Armand de Brignac helped make famous and which is available only by special order. The Midas holds the equivalent of 40 standard bottles, stands around 1.2 metres tall and weighs roughly 45 kilograms when full. For a long time it held the title of the largest commercially available Champagne bottle in the world.
However, that is no longer strictly true. Luc Belaire, another luxury sparkling wine brand, has since released a 45-litre bottle called the Zeus, requiring three people to lift and pour. And the outright record for the largest bottle of sparkling wine ever made sits at 117 litres, a one-off created by Demptos Glass in 1998 and later filled by Korbel Champagne Cellars in California, now officially recognised by Guinness World Records.
