GRAND SIECLE: Recreating the Perfect Year, A Master Class in the Art of Champagne Assemblage - Milwaukee

A seminar on the philosophy, construction and evolution of Champagne Laurent-Perrier's Grand Siècle, with Edouard Cossy, Grand Siècle Global Director

Prestige Champagne is, with rare exception, a wine of vintage. A house waits for an exceptional season, declares it and bottles its finest fruit as a singular record of that year. Grand Siècle rests on a rejection of that convention.

Bernard de Nonancourt, in developing the definitive expression of Laurent-Perrier, concluded that no vintage in Champagne's history has ever been complete. Every year, however celebrated, carries an asymmetry: exceptional Chardonnay alongside merely adequate Pinot Noir; structural power without corresponding finesse; freshness unaccompanied by depth. If that premise holds, then a single vintage represents not Champagne's highest achievement, but a concession to whatever one season happened to provide.

Nonancourt's alternative followed from Champagne's foundational technique: assemblage. Grand Siècle extends the art of blending to its logical, and largely unprecedented, conclusion: not within a single year, but across several.

Every Grand Siècle is composed from three declared Laurent-Perrier vintages, selected for their complementarity rather than their individual distinction. Chardonnay forms the majority of the blend; Pinot Noir supplies structure and complements it. Fruit is drawn from 11 of Champagne's 17 Grand Cru villages, and the wine undergoes cellar aging exceeding a decade prior to release.

The result is not identified by vintage. Each recreation of Nonancourt's "perfect year" is designated an Iteration: not a harvest report, but an attempt, repeatable and revisable, at a fixed and demanding target. Since the first assemblage in 1959, only 27 have been judged sufficient to bear the name, a rate of production that reflects the rigor of the selection rather than any scarcity of raw material.

This seminar proceeds as an inquiry rather than a survey. Five wines are presented not as a ranked lineup, but as successive stages in a single idea.

The tasting opens with Laurent-Perrier Blanc de Blancs Brut Nature, served without dosage. Because Chardonnay forms the majority of Grand Siècle, this wine isolates the grape's purity, precision and freshness before those qualities are integrated into a more complex assemblage.

Laurent-Perrier Héritage follows. Composed entirely from reserve wines drawn across declared vintages, Héritage demonstrates cross-vintage blending in a more limited application and establishes the vocabulary the rest of the seminar depends upon: continuity, freshness and integration.

Grand Siècle Iteration No. 27 introduces the central subject in its current form. From there, the tasting moves backward in time. Grand Siècle Iteration No. 24, presented from magnum, allows examination of the same philosophy under different conditions: a different combination of constituent vintages, and the slower maturation particular to the larger format.

The seminar concludes with Grand Siècle Les Réserves Iteration No. 20, also from magnum: bottles retained in the house's cellars and released only after additional extended aging. Les Réserves represents the furthest point to which the Grand Siècle method can currently be observed, and gives the seminar its final test.

Edouard Cossy has served as Grand Siècle Global Director for Champagne Laurent-Perrier since 2020, a role created specifically to develop and communicate the cuvée internationally. He joined Laurent-Perrier in 2012 after graduate study in the international wine and spirits business and work across Asia and the fine-wine trade. His participation makes this seminar not secondhand commentary, but a direct account from the person charged with representing Grand Siècle's philosophy to the world.

Wines to be tasted:

Laurent Perrier Blanc de Blancs Brut Nature $134.99
Laurent Perrier Heritage Brut $109.99
Grand Siecle 27 $399.99
Grand Siecle 24 Magnum (1.5 L) $799.99
Grand Siecle Les Reserves 20 Magnum (1.5 L) $2,399.99