A Tale.

In 2014 the grapes of the Marne Valley underwent a subtle change.  Hautvillers Benedictine Abby, the ancestral home of Dom Perignon, is in the heart of this Champagne region. It would be a good year, a great vintage; everyone was excited. Richard Geoffroy, Chef de Cave and creator of Dom Perignon’s finest vintages studied the slightest bloom on the grapes that would go unnoticed by most and remembered. This had happened twice before, both times before he was born, but there were accounts in the Abby’s registers. There had been accounts elsewhere in France of bread baked with a certain local flour that had caused the same effect. Geoffroy was not as excited as everyone else. Even today scientists can only guess why a whole village in a certain week of a certain year went crazy. Something in the process of growing and baking appeared to produce a natural hallucinogen, a form of LSD. It couldn’t be proved but that’s what the evidence seemed to suggest. Geoffroy alone had read the Abby’s records, he alone surmised what might happen, but the harvest was good, the grapes were gathered, an excellent vintage forecast and a large profit estimated. When Geoffroy said they should not produce wine that year he was rudely overruled as succumbing to some old wives tale. Production went ahead. Sample tastings pronounced the wine excellent and, being tasted only in small sips, proved to have no ill effects. The bottles were left to mature and a launch date announced. Demand was high as expectations grew for this magnificent vintage and on the due date it was shipped all over the world immediately. The complete stock of 2014 Dom Perignon sold out in a week. What happened next was only foreseen by one man. Needless to say Dom Perignon champagne is only drunk by the elite, the wealthiest and most powerful, leaders in politics, industry, advertising and the media, and needless to say they didn’t just take a sip.