Should we drink the Drappier champagne, the general's favorite?

It is readily said that it was the general's favorite champagne.He drank little but drank good.A slip signed by his hand kept in the archives of this family home located in Urville, in dawn, in the heart of an austere champagne granted to the tastes of the founder of the Fifth Republic, provides proof of it.Twenty-four bottles of extra-dry champagne billed at the unit price of 7.75 francs at "M.General de Gaulle, La Boisserie, Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, Haute-Marne, March 3, 1965 ".At one time, Michel Drappier, who took over from his father André - that his 94 years do not prevent drinking champagne every day - had exposed this relic.He ended up putting her away.

»To read also: All about the AOC Champagne

"It was a wink.We don't want to reduce Drappier Champagne to Charles de Gaulle.It remains anecdotal."Drappier Champagnes, it's 1.5 million bottles produced per year.Imagined in 1990 to salute the fiftieth anniversary of the Julti 18 call, the Charles de Gaulle cuvée is a side step within a wide range.It is made up of 80% Pinot Noir and 20% Chardonnay.But Michel Drappier, seconded by his daughter Charline and his sons Hugo and Antoine, does not want to make a standard.The 95/100 note, which the Wine Spectator tasters granted him, has changed anything.Between 4,000 and 10,000 bottles are marketed each year.And that's all."La Cuvée Charles de Gaulle remains a discreet tribute, says Michel Drappier.In our mind, this champagne must resemble the one that the general loved.""

However, the winemaker did not push the coquetry until producing an extra-dry cuvée, in the taste of yesteryear, with a dose of sugar between 12 and 18 g/l.As its name does not indicate to laymen, extra -dry champagne is more dosed than raw - less than 12 g/l of sugar - and that extra -breakfast - between 0 and 6 g/l sugar.Even if Anselme and Guillaume Selosse succeed in developing wonders of dry champagnes with the exquisite cuvée, whose dosage oscillates between 22 and 26 g/l of sugar, this taste of champagnes that the English ladies drank at tea time, inThe palaces of the Riviera, has passed a bit.

The trademark of the Drappier house is rather the complete absence of shipping liquor in the famous raw cuvée Nature Pinot Noir Zero Dosage.A black white to which the slightest gram of cane sugar is not added as is commonly done in the region. Si la Marne est un département au vignoble dominé par le chardonnay - et notamment la fameuse" côte des Blancs"" -, l’Aube, dont le sous-sol est constitué de calcaires marneux du kimméridgien, se révèle particulièrement adapté à la croissance et au mûrissement du pinot noir.This fine grape, which is at the origin of the big red Burgundy 200 km southeast, gives birth to vinous, fringent and fruity champagnes, with a pretty nose of bread, apple and quince jelly.Taste the raw nature pinot black zero dosage from Drappier is to adopt it.

A new wind

Monday, November 9, the anniversary of the death of Charles de Gaulle, it is expected that Emmanuel Macron comes to greet his high memory in Colombey-les-Deux-Églises.Through the window of the corner office of the ground floor of the tower, which the general had the bushel bucket in the aftermath of the war, the President of the Republic will admire a magnificent French landscape, under a sky ofnoble and severe slate like a sermon by Bernard de Clairvaux.And at the end, on the slope of a crowned mountain, near the Bois du Mont plateau, the culmination of wine champagne, he may have the chance to see a vineyard of the Drappier house.It is planned that the meal prepared by chef Jean-Baptiste Natali at the Hostellerie La Montagne de Colombey, a starry table well known to presidential visitors, be accompanied by Champagne Drappier.It is unknown what the recommendations of the sommelier of the Élysée will be: he knows the Drappier champagne, he has some bottles in his cellar.But these bottles do not date from the general's time!In the 1960s, when Colonel Gaston de Bonneval, who was both the help of the General's camp and the godfather of Michel Drappier, oriented the head of state to the house of Urville, 25 km fromColombey, it was only a question of providing your private cellar.At the Élysée, the advantage was granted to the big Marne houses: Ruinart, widow Clicquot, Cristal Roederer, Bollinger.

It was in 2002, while Guillaume Joubin, a great lover of natural wines, was a sommelier at the Élysée, that the Drappier Champagnes found their place in the cellars of 55, rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, between Morgonde Marcel Lapierre, the Nuits-Saint-Georges de Prieuré Roch and the Bordeaux of Château Le Puy: "The Cuvées Carte d'Or, Grande Sendrée and Rosé de Péignée", confides Michel Drappier, supplier accustomed to the Garden-Parties and Deunchesofficials.What is the most important to him, currently, is the work of his children.Among the many cuvées of the house, he likes to highlight Clarevalis (75% Pinot Noir, 10% Pinot Meunier, 10% Chardonnay and 5% Pinot Blanc) and father Pinot (25% Pinot Noir, 25% Pinot Blanc, 25%Pinot Gris and 25% Pinot Meunier), imagined and produced by Charline, Hugo and Antoine, who blow a new wind on the family estate. Non soufrée, dosée à 3 g/l de sucre, la cuvée Père Pinot, qu’Hugo Drappier présente joliment comme un " champagne orange"", est époustouflante de complexité, de profondeur et de gourmandise.It is no longer the general's taste, but it is already that of the future.

In the cellar of Charles de Gaulle

Charles de Gaulle buvait peu de vin mais il aimait être photographié un verre à la main, portant un toast ou célébrant tel recoin du " cher et vieux pays"".It was not aware that wine is not just an alcoholic title, it is also, it is above all a know-how, a culture, a history, landscapes, a heritage. Et il savait, avec l’agronome Olivier de Serres, que le grand art des vignerons consiste à cultiver les terroirs " selon leurs diverses qualités, situations et climats"".In April 1959, the general had returned to business for a short year when he stopped in Gevrey-Chambertin, on the Burgundy Wine Route, he said to the mayor: "I could not stop in your country withoutmark the particular consideration that I experience for the illustration that it brings to national renown."" Quatre ans plus tard, de passage à Épernay, en Champagne, et toujours verre à la main, le premier président de la Ve République a célébré " quelque chose d’unique qui nous appartient et qui est maintenant consacré "".

The general's biographers and those who, like Claude Dulong, have set out to evoke daily life in the Elysée Palace in Charles de Gaulle (Hachette, 1974) spoke of his penchant for frugality and his rejection of all form of luxury."I don't want waste, there was too much before me in this house."This was true in terms of wine as for the rest.At his ordinary at the Élysée, he was served the aromatic and light Beaujolais produced by Jules Chauvet at La Chapelle-De-Guinchay.For official lunches, the sommelier of the Élysée had identified a round, flexible, elegant and fruity mill, Château Poujeaux. Et l’auteur du Fil de l’épée n’a jamais été un amateur de ces fameux ""grands vins"" qu’affectionnent les buveurs d’étiquettes.

To talk about wine, he was well surrounded.His camp help Colonel Gaston de Bonneval was responsible for choosing his champagne to him.Between 1958 and 1960, one of the members of the general's office was none other than the engineer of the Mines Jean Méo, from the Méo-Camuzet estate to Vosne-Romanée, one of the jewels of the Côtes-de-Nuits.Man of the North and East, Charles de Gaulle loved continental wines and slow fruits to mature.In its time, the Cave de l'Elysée, created in 1947 under Vincent Auriol, was mostly made up of Burgundy wines.The menus kept in the Elysée archives shed light on the elegance and sobriety of its tastes.On June 24, 1964, on the occasion of a dinner given in honor of Norodom Sihanouk, king of Cambodia, was served in turn a Puligny-Montrachet 1957 and one nights 1955-two wines from Burgundy.Then came the Tour du Champagne Ruinart.A simple kitchen associated with fine wines. " Tout compte s’il s’agit du prestige de l’État"", aimait à répéter le Général.