Three vintage Champagnes to mark Joseph Perrier’s 190 years

Jean-Claude Fourmont is an authentic Champenois gentleman, someone you could spend days with strolling through the garden of his county villa in Cumières, set alongside the river that gives the name to the Marne Valley, and listen to his stories about the past in Champagne. Jean-Claude Fourmon is the descendent of a family with “Chalonnaises origins”, as he loves to say when recounting the history of his Maison propriétaire.

Chalons-en-Champagne is the village where, in 1825, the young Joseph Perrier chose an old inn on the old road to Fagniers as the headquarters for his Maison with the wine made and stored in a neighboring home that had cellars carved out of chalk during the Gallic-Roman era that were perfect for aging the Champagne. Joseph Perrier’s heirs were named Perrier, Pithois and Fourmon and they handed the Maison down father to son for five generations thus maintaining its family character.  Jean-Claude Fourmon, the grandson of Georges Pithois, took control of the Maison in 1980 and he continues to run it today with the help of his son. The Maison now owns 21 hectares of vineyards – which produce 30% of their needs – situated between Verneuil and Cumières on hills with a southern exposure overlooking the Marne River. In Cumières, amid the sea of vineyards that roll in waves from Hautvillers to the Marne, the Maison owns nine hectares of vineyards that produce the best Pinot Noir and Chardonnay for their cuvée de prestige, including the celebrated Josephine, and vintage wines.

The Maison’s qualitative consistency and stylistic identity is entrusted to another element in family tradition: Chef de Caves Jérome Dervin, the 37-year-old son of Claude, grandson of Michel and great-grandson Léon, four generations who served as guardians of blending secrets dating back to when the Maison was founded by Joseph Perrier. To mark the 190years of this splendid family history, in 2015 the Maison – which has a cave privée filled with old vintages – created a limited case set with three recently disgorged Cuvée Vintage from special years: 1975, 1985 and 1995, all with a reproduction of the label used by the Maison in 1834. Banfi, which is the exclusive importer of Joseph Perrier wines in Italy, has only a few sets of this rare collection (which costs around 1,600 euros) but a group of seasoned Champagne lovers enthusiastically took part in a special tasting that yet again confirmed the great quality of Joseph Perrier production.

Related Products