Vitalie Taittinger: “Champagne is a language…”

2024-08-29 14:52:11

Maison Taittinger has been working for years to combine art and champagne. Its president, Vitalie Taittingerpaints a portrait of a refined family home. An interview to read without moderation.

Did you know that rappers like Mister You and PNL cite Maison Taittinger in their songs?
Vitalie Taittinger: I didn’t know about this, but I’m very happy to hear it!

What does this form of recognition represent for you?
There is no greater reward than being in the lives of artists and what they write, but also in books, music, cinema… This is what makes a House exist years later and above all belong to the heritage. I am always happy to see a bottle of Taittinger in an old film, for example. Champagne associated with art is a beautiful translation: it is emotion, life, the filter that amplifies everything. So I am not surprised that it appeals to artists.

Art often comes up when we talk about the House.
Yes, our relationship with art is unique. Several people in the family were artists, it’s something that continues to tease us every day, because that’s how our sensitivity was also built. In addition, we grew up in a family where art was desacralized. Finally, it became something natural.

How do you bring this alliance of champagne and art to life?
Champagne being an art itself, I would say that it is close to the exercise of painting. It is the intention of men, it is a material that comes from nature and it is a projection in time, a form of chance added to the Champagne recipe, as in painting. We have 288 hectares, and more in supply. We play with a palette of vintages, grape varieties, years and more. We want the stories we tell to give emotions. To produce vintages that have the same identity each year, we constantly reinvent the recipe according to the climate, and many other parameters… It is an exciting and artistic game.

You have just launched the Philantropic Ars Nova endowment fund. Is this the culmination of the Maison’s artistic commitment?
After several years of kneading sponsorship actions, partnerships in art and others, I said to myself that it would be good to get out of champagne to be able to ensure that all these actions have an even stronger impact on an audience that is not necessarily the one we reach with champagne. I found it interesting to have at the same time the potential for action of the Taittinger house, but to put it at the service of a goal that was not necessarily combinable with the House. Taittinger will endow Philantropic Ars Nova and focus on how to ensure that the fields of art, heritage, gastronomy and music can be better transmitted to a wider audience.

The idea of ​​this fund is to connect the public with art. Why do you put a special emphasis on opera?
The combination of music and image, with sets, costumes… It’s the sum of different professions and it’s what we find best in group performance. There’s nothing stronger than an opera to feel emotions. It’s probably the broadest and most personal axis. We want to reveal private collections. It’s quite grandiose and it can be very inaccessible when you’re in the provinces. Art in general revolves more around the meaning of images. We ask ourselves a lot about the art market but not necessarily about the relationship to art. It’s a relationship that can be quite simple, necessary. We need to immerse ourselves in images that are not necessarily reality, to be able to extract ourselves. We also need to ask ourselves the question of the distance between the gaze and reality.

What are the special features of Maison Taittinger?
It has been a family business for four generations. When I say family, it is because that is really what plays a large part in all our decisions. The particularity when we are a family is that we think a little far into the future. We tell ourselves that we are going to pass on our heritage and we take our time, we are not here for short-term objectives. We think both about what built us and what we are building.

“PRODUCE GREAT WINES, MAKE PEOPLE HAPPY!”

You are probably one of the most important independent Houses on the market. What are the challenges to maintain this course?
I think it goes well beyond champagne. Our challenge is to always find meaning in what we do and to ensure that this House has a reason to exist in our current world: to fight for things fairly, namely to produce very great wines to make people happy. We also want to stay connected to today’s life by carrying this tradition that builds us and nourishes us, while keeping its humility. There is all the passion of what we do every day.

Do you consider champagne an affordable luxury?
Yes, in the same way as a bouquet of flowers or a box of chocolates. Very often, people say that it is expensive. A bouquet does not last very long, but it remains a pleasure of nature and of all the senses. I think that champagne can be included in this category. It is a kind of everyday magic. A man who offers a glass of Prosecco to a woman is not the same thing when he offers her a glass of champagne. It is a language in its own right. Without saying anything, you reveal everything.

How did the 2023 harvest go?
The year 2023 in the vineyard was an absolutely magnificent year. I have rarely felt so much generosity of vigor from nature in the vineyard. This also resulted in absolutely extraordinary harvests. The grape clusters were exceptionally heavy. When you find yourself with such a quantity, it puts even more pressure on you to know how to absorb it, to make something of quality out of it. Nature is never easy to manage, that is the challenge of our profession. I will remember this wine year. In terms of sales, after Covid, there was a surge. Everyone overconsumed champagne, because we all needed to party and live. The year 2023 is wiser. It is marked by the anxiety of current events… Champagne remains the great wine of pleasure, of adhering to a form of fantasy and dreams. It is a dreamlike drink and in a world like ours, we need to dream.

What can we wish you for 2024?
I hope we will continue on this path. I am not so much worried, I am not so much interested in the figures even if they are good indicators but it is above all to see that the course we have set is better and better understood by the people who work with us, and it is also by the public. We remain in a form of coherence and consistency to which we cling.

www.taittinger.com

Par Zoé Schoumacher

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