The Great Brands and Champagne Houses

FROM VINES TO PLEASURE
The important crafts of Champagne

Cellar Master Perrier-Jouët : Hervé Deschamps

		Born in 1956 into a family from the Champagne region, Hervé Deschamps studied agriculture and oenology at Dijon, going on to earn degrees in both agronomy and oenology. He completed his studies with work on nutrition and food sciences, before joining Perrier-Jouët in 1983 as oenologist in charge of the fermentation process and the cellar ageing of wines. He was soon appointed as assistant to Chef de Cave André Bavaret, the guardian of the Perrier-Jouët house style for almost 30 years. During that time, Hervé learned much about the art of blending the various Champagne wines while retaining the hallmark charm and elegance of Perrier-Jouët’s cuvées. In 1993, Hervé succeeded André to become only the seventh Chef de Cave in Perrier-Jouët’s two-hundred-year history. Since then he has been in charge of producing the entire Perrier-Jouët range, including Grand Brut (vintage and non-vintage), Blason Rosé and the legendary Belle Epoque and Belle Epoque Rosé cuvées.
His approach to blending is to view it as a creative process. “I go straight to the blending stage, rather like an artist, trusting in an inexplicable fusion of intuition, sensitivity and skill.” Emile Gallé, the master glassmaker of the Art Nouveau movement who created the anemone design on the Belle Epoque bottle in 1902, would doubtless approve.