Champagne Bruno Paillard - Première Cuvée Extra Brut
Product details
| Management number | 253420705 | Release Date | 2026/10/24 | List Price | CA$42.00 | Model Number | 253420705 | ||
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Back in 1981, Bruno Paillard, aged 27, did something unusual and ambitious: he started a new Champagne house. He sold his Mark II Jaguar for 50,000 Francs, which became the working capital of the company. He borrowed money from the bank and, leveraging his knowledge of the grape market after having worked in his father’s grape brokerage house for six years, bought some grapes and rented winery space to process them.
Going against the grain of corporate consolidation, less strict wine making practices, and uniformity driven by the large purchasing power of supermarkets, this family house followed the opposite approach: small and focused in his buying, long maturation for the wines, low dosage, and selective distribution to get his product to like-minded consumers.
Though by no means a small house (ranks around 30 in size, with around 500,000 bottles annually), Bruno still exercises strong control over his product. For instance, his non-vintage wines have a high proportion of reserve wines, ranging from around 30% to 50%. He uses a low dosage and aims for purity, minerality, and aging capacity in his wines. Just first pressings are used; Champagne Paillard targets vineyards that have chalky subsoil. The cellar has 110 steel tanks and also 500 barrels, which are bought second-hand from Denis Dubordieu and the Perrin family in Bordeaux. These choices reflect the needs and tastes of a list of over 400 Michelin-starred restaurants among his customers.
One of the benefits of being a sole owner is the ability to do things his way. Paillard designed a special bottle shape. This is because he had previously worked as a broker, and he wanted to make it clear that he wasn’t buying sur latte, a practice he strongly disagrees with (this is when a Champagne house buys wines in bottle from other sources and then disgorges them and puts their own label on them). However, his bottle shape–he feels–was recently copied by a well known Champagne house, something which he is furious about but thinks there is no point in legal action.
Champagne Bruno Paillard is 100% family owned, and there is a succession plan: his daughter Alice is taking over from him. She is now the main shareholder and is the future CEO. Expect great things to continue to come from Champagne Bruno Paillard.
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