Winegrowers’ portraits Reims
Maison Bruno Paillard
Bruno Paillard, the champagne expert
Today Bruno Paillard is considered an important person of Champagne. Although he chairs an important quoted family group: Lanson-BCC, but also the Committee for the Defense of the appellation Champagne at the CIVC, he first is the owner of the eponymous house he founded in 1981 and for which he remains the nose and the craftsman of the blendings. The House Bruno Paillard is brilliantly discreet like a family jewel crafted by a goldsmith!
With his impudent youth and 50,000 francs in his pocket, Bruno Paillard created in january 1981 a Champagne house in his name and forename. Thirty years later, the House Bruno Paillard works all over the world like goldsmiths Odiot or Puiforcat, with a high quality production, perfectly mastered.
A goldsmith is fond of good raw material. Bruno Paillard endowed his house with a 32-hectare vineyard that enables him to make the greatests blends. His 87 plots are located in the heart of the Champagne region, divided into 15 crus, mainly at Cumières, Damery, Festigny, Verzenay, Bouzy, Les Riceys, Oger, Mesnil-sur-Oger. It is a wine merchant vineyard who guarantees his supplies in the growths that interest him to compose his cuvees. It provides 53% of his needs for a production of 4 to 500,000 bottles. This vineyard is first outstanding by its ploughed land, leading the roots of the vines to extract very deeply in the chalk the slightly salty minerality, specific to the great terroirs. The soil amendments, adapted to each plot, are entirely organic.
Bruno Paillard polished in details the style of his wines to make them elegant and complex at the same time. Their sparkling vie for finesse, theirs colours show natural and brilliant tints, and the three varietals used exude very pure aromas. He skilfully crafts them by ageing part of them in stainless steel vats of different sizes where they undergo alcoholic fermentation, and for others in small 225-litre oak casks.
Bruno Paillard tasting in his office the clear wines from his vineyard.
Like the goldsmith who hallmarks all his works, the House Bruno Paillard prints in all transparency since 1983 the date of disgorgement on the back label to inform the consumer. The taste Bruno Paillard, who looks for tension and finesse, without fearing a kind of austerity at the opening of the bottles, favours Chardonnay. His wines benefit from a very long maturing in the cellar. He only uses the first press. The house has an average five-year stock in the cellar. For a Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru, the ageing lasts five years; for a vintage, nine years, i. e. three times more than the legal time! And for the Prestige cuvee Nec Plus Ultra, now it is the vintage 1999 that is on the market! This policy demands perseverance, all the more as
“replacing sugar by time is more expensive. But finally it is satisfying to discover the extraordinary ageing potential of the grand Champagnes.”An extra service provided by Bruno Paillard: the sale by allocation of vintages unobtainable on the market, years 89-90-95-99. The wines Bruno Paillard are rare and have a selective distribution in 33 countries. They shine on starred tables (not less than 400 addresses) who appreciate his wines, all dosed at 4 to 6 grams per litre, with a very long maturation time.
Bruno Paillard could have decided to sell his Champagne on the mass retail market, he preferred to place it in a network of excellence.
“I have chosen to serve Champagne with rigor, not to use Champagne to serve me. I run after the stars, not after volume.”A great joy for him is to see his daughter Alice commit herself enthusiastically at his side and prepare herself to take over the reins.
His plan for the future? He will redesign the Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru Champagne Bruno Paillard in 2015!
Marie-Caroline Bourrellis
Champagne Bruno Paillard
Avenue de Champagne
51100 Reims
Tél. : +33(0)3 26 36 20 22
www.champagnebrunopaillard.com
