Château d’Yquem launches crystalline and luminous 2020 vintage.
Every vintage of @Château d’Yquem brings fresh delights, and the 2020 is no exception, with a delicate and ethereal personality that subtly balances freshness and solar aromatic notes.
Château d’Yquem has just launched their latest 2020 vintage, which is sure to delight wine lovers with its delicate and ethereal personality. Despite challenging weather conditions during the harvest, the estate’s expert winemaking teams were able to create a wine that perfectly balances freshness and solar aromatic notes.
The 2020 vintage has been introduced at select fine dining establishments as part of the Lighthouse program, giving wine enthusiasts the chance to experience it in all its glory. The wine is served by the glass, either before or during a meal, with carefully selected food pairings at each of the 47 Lighthouses. Expert sommeliers and chefs guide guests through the delicious experience, showcasing the bright possibilities of the 2020 vintage.
According to Pierre Lurton, the CEO of Château d’Yquem, the 2020 vintage is a wine of great finesse, characterized by a crystalline and luminous character. Along with the launch of the new vintage, the estate has released a short film that captures the essence of the wine‘s burst of flavors and emotional journey that comes with sharing a glass of Yquem.
Artist Eva Jospin celebrates the geographic diversity of Maison Ruinart and its history.; @Ruinart
Ruinart chooses artist Eva Jospin for 2023 Carte Blanche commission
Ruinart luxury champagne Maison has collaborated with several contemporary artists in the past to create limited editions of its champagne, including Georgia Russell, Jaume Plensa, Liu Bolin, Hubert Le Gall, and Philippe Cognée, among others. These collaborations often involve the creation of unique artworks and installations that reinterpret the Ruinart universe and celebrate the Maison’s long-standing history and savoir-faire.
Each year Ruinart asks a contemporary artist to propose an artistic take for a limited edition of its champagne. This year’s Carte Blanche artist, Eva Jospin, has reappropriated the Ruinart universe with an immersive installation entitled PROMENADE(S) en Champagne, evoking both the wealth of the Champagne region’s terroir and the precision of the skilled gestures passed on through generations to craft the Maison’s exceptional champagne.
Interlaced vines, the majestic underground chalk quarries transformed into wine cellars, echoes of the royal past when kings were crowned in the Reims cathedral, and a future built on preserving biodiversity all served as inspiration for her carrousel of works. The French sculptor and Ruinart share a commitment to artisanal craftsmanship and embracing the power of time. The centerpiece of her Carte Blanche is a Carmontelle, a roll of paper with pastoral scenes offering a graphic narrative of visible and invisible elements that go into creating champagne.
The captivating object has a history dating back to the 18th century, when Maison Ruinart was founded. Setting the theme for the Carte Blanche installation, the Carmontelle evokes the different places Eva Jospin visited, from the Ruinart chalk cellars and vineyards to the neighboring forest. Juxtaposing multiple strata, subterranean and aerial landscapes from roots to sky, her sculpture reprises the interlaced motif, evoking the shoots of the vines. Choosing cardboard as her medium for these miniature sculptural creations, Eva Jospin elevates the lowly material with her painstaking gestures, just as the cellar master coaxes the qualities of the grape into exquisite champagne. Her high-relief cardboard creations also evoke the forest, a recurrent theme in her work, inspired by the forest that borders the Taissy vineyards. Conceived as landscapes, her embroideries combine flax yarn with brass, whose metallic sheen calls to mind the muselet, the wire cage that holds the champagne cork in the bottle. And her Indian ink drawings on marouflage canvas become a cartography of the region.
“The history, geography, culture and amazing savoir-faire of this region define a terroir, and that’s what really inspired me. My proposition for this Carte Blanche takes form in a sculptural décor that celebrates this landscape,” says Eva Jospin.
“The landscape of Champagne is unique in its verticality, encompassing subterranean cellars and quarries and hillsides covered by vineyards. This unique character is what led UNESCO to recognize the terroir as a World Heritage site. Eva Jospin’s artistic creations for Ruinart spotlight these different strata of the Champagne region,” says Frédéric Dufour, President of Maison Ruinart.
Eva Jospin has also created a limited edition piece around a Jeroboam of Ruinart’s signature Blanc de Blancs cuvée. The custom-made wooden box is fastened by leather straps, opening onto a miniature crayère scene sculpted in layers of cardboard. The bottle is nestled in this recessed landscape, a metaphor for making the champagne, and its fermentation sheltered from light.
This exceptional Blanc de Blancs cuvée – an assemblage of 25 to 30 meticulously selected Chardonnay vintages – reveals citrus notes with an enveloping, velvety texture.
The limited edition counts just 25 signed and numbered pieces.
