Vacheron Constantin’s New Unique Les Cabinotiers Watches
The musical pièce unique watches are masterpieces to rival the compositions that inspired them.
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Vacheron Constantin style and heritage director Christian Selmoni is talking about horse pee. Definitely “pee.” I checked (twice) in case I’d misheard, and yes, in between talk of métiers d’art and pièce unique chiming watches dreamed up by Geneva’s oldest watchmaker and given six-figure price tags, our conversation appears to have strayed into the stable yard.
Not without good reason. Many moons ago, Selmoni explains, watchmakers used horse urine, specifically that of mares, to harden the steel gongs found in early minute-repeating watches. They’d heat the steel up to around 1000 degrees Celsius and then cool it in the salty equine infusion, whereupon a crystallising process would take place, hardening the outside of the steel without compromising its flexibility.
“We don’t use this technique anymore,” says the 60-year-old, a knowing smile curling quietly across his face. “But what I can say is that if you are a customer of Les Cabinotiers and you would like your minute repeater to be dipped in pee, we are more than happy to accede to your request.”
It’s mid-morning on a sizzling day in Singapore, and the longtime servant (30 years and counting) of the venerable Swiss maison has allowed himself the luxury of removing his jacket, but not his tie. Despite the heat and the jet lag, Selmoni is doing his best to offer up some temperate reflections on Vacheron Constantin’s latest Les Cabinotiers collection, dubbed La Musique du Temps. Although, as he’s keen to point out, it’s not a collection.
“It’s really not,” he says. “By definition, Les Cabinotiers is about pièces uniques. If we take our product offer like a pyramid, Les Cabinotiers is at the very top, the summit of Vacheron Constantin in terms of watchmaking and decorative crafts. I can’t compare it with the [core] collection. If we were a car manufacturer, it would be our Formula 1 team.”
The division behind Les Cabinotiers was founded in 2006. The idea, Selmoni explains, was “to reconnect with unique timepieces made to order in the past.” That tradition, he says, continued from the 18th century into the 20th and stopped not long after the Second World War.
At first, Les Cabinotiers was a commission-only service known as Atelier Cabinotiers. Much as a superyacht manufacturer could spec a boat to a customer’s tastes, so too would Vacheron create a personal timepiece to suit almost any whim. Selmoni describes the atelier as both “a small workshop dedicated to our clients’ desires” and “a laboratory to demonstrate what we are able to do in terms of watchmaking.”
One of its first watches, delivered for an unnamed client in 2011, was the Vladimir, an astronomical piece with 891 components and 17 complications. Despite being one of the most complicated watches ever made, it was merely a harbinger of what was to come. In 2015, conveniently coinciding with Vacheron’s 260th anniversary, the division delivered the Reference 57260 pocket watch, which, with 57 complications, remains by some margin the most complicated mechanical watch ever created.
Vacheron Constantin Les Cabinotiers Minute Repeater Tourbillon Sky Chart “A Celestial Note” Caseback Courtesy of Vacheron Constantin
“That was the first major order for Les Cabinotiers,” says Selmoni, noting that it was commissioned before the Vladimir. “It took us eight years to complete.”
After Louis Ferla took over as CEO of Vacheron Constantin in 2017, the atelier evolved. Instead of waiting for customer orders, the company decided to produce a series of one-off pieces and offer them to customers. In late 2017 it launched the concept in Kyoto; in 2018 it unveiled Les Cabinotiers Mécaniques Sauvages, inspired by the animal kingdom, in Paris.
Les Cabinotiers La Musique du Temps, being presented here in Singapore, is a 40-odd-piece collection—or perhaps a symphony?—of chiming watches, which couldn’t be more classical if they pranced around Salzburg in ruffs while trilling The Magic Flute. That they’re all one-offs—from the Minute Repeater Ultra-Thin, with its deceptively simple forward profile, to the gloriously complex Symphonia Grande Sonnerie “The Sixth Symphony” (which has grande and petite sonneries and a case engraved with part of the score from Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony)—beggars belief. All that effort—and for just one of each watch! Commensurate with their rarity, prices start around $235,000, and from there, says Selmoni, “the sky’s the limit.”
The 2015 Reference 57260 pocket watch is equipped with 57 complications. Courtesy of Vacheron Constantin
Vacheron Constantin’s expertise in the field of watches that sound the hour or chime the time on demand needs no introduction, but by amplifying those skills, the company has invited questions about its ambitions to advance chiming-watch technology. In recent years, loudness has become a new battleground, and Audemars Piguet and Ulysse Nardin have been turning up the volume.
Is Vacheron sounding its intentions to join the fray? “The answer could be yes, if we want to compete with the [Audemars Piguet] Supersonnerie, for example,” says Selmoni. “But I wish good luck to anyone who tries. No, our purpose is to be loud enough to be heard in a noisy environment, crystal clear and harmonious.”
Vacheron’s specific ambition, he explains, is to make better ultra-thin chiming watches, fusing two areas of fine watchmaking together. “The thinner the movement, the more difficult it is to have a clear and loud sound,” he says. “Why? Because the thinner the movement, the closer the gongs are to each other, so they enter into resonance.”
The Minute Repeater calendar’s movement is just 5.70mm thick, housing 438 components. Courtesy of Vacheron Constantin
To illustrate the difference, he produces a pair of watches: one of Vacheron’s ultra-thin minute repeaters powered by caliber 1731 (which is just 3.9mm thick) and one with the larger caliber 2755 QP (which has a perpetual calendar and is 7.9mm thick). I’m no Mozart and the room is full of chatter, but to my ear, the latter is richer, clearer and perhaps even louder. “It’s much more difficult to tune a minute repeater when the movement is so thin,” he says. “I think we can improve it.”
That development process will take place at the manufacture in Switzerland, but records of Vacheron’s aural achievements will be logged in the UK. The company now records the chimes of every minute repeater it makes in Studio 2 of London’s Abbey Road Studios, which still echoes with the sounds of the Beatles and Pink Floyd.
“We’ve actually been recording all our minute repeaters since 1992,” says Selmoni. “Because when the watches come back for service, we have to make sure that when we deliver them back, they sound the same.”
The Symphonia Grande Sonnerie features a treble clef tracking 20 hours of power reserve for the strikework. Courtesy of Vacheron Constantin
Les Cabinotiers pieces, especially those with grand complications such as minute repeaters, have been popular with Asian buyers, thanks to an increase in spending power in China and elsewhere. To be sure, it’s no coincidence that the company has held two of the three collection previews in Asian cities. But given the current environment, the watches may have a hard time finding a home on the other side of the world. Luca Solca, a Geneva-based luxury analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, says that, as a result of the novel coronavirus, he expects Chinese spending to fall 50 per cent in the first quarter of 2020, compared to the same period last year, and 30 per cent in the second quarter, before rebounding by 10 per cent in the second half of 2020. This forecast applies to wherever Chinese nationals spend money in aggregate, including mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Japan and Europe, which is to say everywhere. And those predictions operate on the assumption that the pandemic resolves swiftly.
Despite evidence suggesting Vacheron is heavily reliant on China (39 of its 89 boutiques are there), Selmoni insists that Les Cabinotiers isn’t targeted at the Chinese and that customers come from all over the world. (At press time, Covid-19 had become a global pandemic, and Chinese cases appeared to have peaked.) He also says anyone can buy or commission—that service continues—a Les Cabinotiers piece. The only qualifying criterion is being able to afford it.
“It’s a very simple, very natural process in which the client meets the brand and we do something together,” he says of the commissioned timepieces. “In 80 per cent of cases, our clients don’t know exactly what they want. They want a unique piece, they want something complicated, something special, but they have no real idea of what they want. We say the sky’s the limit, and we can prove it, because we did the 57260.”
The company does not reveal quantities of these one-offs—fuel for the mystique—but it appears likely there are now around 100 Les Cabinotiers pieces in circulation.
Hand assembly of the Openworked Tourbillon High-Jewelry watch’s 2260 caliber. Courtesy of Vacheron Constantin
“I bought my Les Cabinotiers piece from a collector in Asia,” says Robert, an East Coast collector who runs a philanthropic-strategy company. “He offered it to me directly because we had met before and he knew I was a serious Vacheron Constantin collector. It’s a rose-gold watch with a grand feu enamel dial from 2008 and is a [custom] time-only version of a Historiques Chronomètre Royal 1907. It’s the only version with indigo-blue numerals and writing on the dial. It also has Vacheron’s signature Maltese cross on the dial just under the 6, which wasn’t included on the production model.”
Exchanges like this one almost always happen behind closed doors. Rebecca Ross, a Christie’s watch specialist, describes Les Cabinotiers as auction rarities. Only one has landed on the block in recent memory: a platinum double-faced perpetual-calendar minute repeater, which sold for around $682,000 at Christie’s Important Watches auction in March 2019 in Dubai.
Alex Ghotbi, head of watches for continental Europe and the Middle East at Phillips and a former Vacheron Constantin employee, says the reason for their scarcity on the open market is twofold: “Because Les Cabinotiers started off as bespoke pieces, they’re not necessarily easy to sell. But also, the owner doesn’t want to let go of it. They have a personal relationship with the watch.” Ghotbi attributes the lag in the non-custom pieces to the fact that the company has been making them for only a few years. “Vacheron isn’t one of these brands where people just buy a watch and flip it to make some cash,” says Ghotbi. “It’s not that kind of clientele and it’s not that kind of brand. Most of the people who buy these watches are buying them for the love of the mechanics and design. They want to hold on to them.”
Hand assembly of the Openworked Tourbillon High-Jewelry watch’s 2260 caliber. Courtesy of Vacheron Constantin
The commissioning client is also, literally, investing in a huge amount of time. When the watch is six figures or more, executing it can take years of patience, according to Ruediger Albers, president of Wempe Jewelers, one of New York City’s most important boutiques. “It’s usually an existing customer that inquires about Les Cabinotiers timepieces,” says Albers. “It’s a very exclusive little club, and they fall in love with all the different aspects of the artistry.”
“It’s a big responsibility to create Les Cabinotiers pieces,” says Selmoni. “These watches incorporate all our skills at Vacheron Constantin. The watches are very high value, but we have to make sure they’re not bling—that they embody all the qualities you would expect from Vacheron Constantin.”
Even if that means a dip in horse pee.
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Watch of the Week: TAG Heuer Formula 1 | Kith
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Watch of the Week: TAG Heuer Formula 1 | Kith
The legendary sports watch returns, but with an unexpected twist.
Over the last few years, watch pundits have predicted the return of the eccentric TAG Heuer Formula 1, in some shape or form. It was all but confirmed when TAG Heuer’s heritage director, Nicholas Biebuyck, teased a slew of vintage models on his Instagram account in the aftermath of last year’s Watches & Wonders 2023 in Geneva. And when speaking with Frédéric Arnault at last year’s trade fair, the former CEO asked me directly if the brand were to relaunch its legacy Formula 1 collection, loved by collectors globally, how should they go about it?
My answer to the baited entreaty definitely didn’t mention a collaboration with Ronnie Fieg of Kith, one of the world’s biggest streetwear fashion labels. Still, here we are: the TAG Heuer Formula 1 is officially back and as colourful as ever.
As the watch industry enters its hype era—in recent years, we’ve seen MoonSwatches, Scuba Fifty Fathoms, and John Mayer G-Shocks—the new Formula 1 x Kith collaboration might be the coolest yet.
Here’s the lowdown: overnight, TAG Heuer, together with Kith, took to socials to unveil a special, limited-edition collection of Formula 1 timepieces, inspired by the original collection from the 1980s. There are 10 new watches, all limited, with some designed on a stainless steel bracelet and some on an upgraded rubber strap; both options nod to the originals.
Seven are exclusive to Kith and its global stores (New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Hawaii, Tokyo, Toronto, and Paris, to be specific), and are made in an abundance of colours. Two are exclusive to TAG Heuer; and one is “shared” between TAG Heuer and Kith—this is a highlight of the collection, in our opinion. A faithful play on the original composite quartz watch from 1986, this model, limited to just 1,350 pieces globally, features the classic black bezel with red accents, a stainless steel bracelet, and that creamy eggshell dial, in all of its vintage-inspired glory. There’s no doubt that this particular model will present as pure nostalgia for those old enough to remember when the original TAG Heuer Formula 1 made its debut.
Of course, throughout the collection, Fieg’s design cues are punctuated: the “TAG” is replaced with “Kith,” forming a contentious new brand name for this specific release, as well as Kith’s slogan, “Just Us.”
Collectors and purists alike will appreciate the dedication to the original Formula 1 collection: features like the 35mm Arnite cases—sourced from the original 80s-era supplier—the form hour hand, a triangle with a dot inside at 12 o’clock, indices that alternate every quarter between shields and dots, and a contrasting minuterie, are all welcomed design specs that make this collaboration so great.
Every TAG Heuer Formula 1 | Kith timepiece will be presented in an eye-catching box that complements the fun and colour theme of Formula 1 but drives home the premium status of this collaboration. On that note, at $2,200 a piece, this isn’t exactly an approachable quartz watch but reflects the exclusive nature of Fieg’s Kith brand and the pieces he designs (largely limited-edition).
So, what do we think? It’s important not to understate the significance of the arrival of the TAG Heuer Formula 1 in 1986, in what would prove integral in setting up the brand for success throughout the 90’s—it was the very first watch collection to have “TAG Heuer” branding, after all—but also in helping to establish a new generation of watch consumer. Like Fieg, many millennial enthusiasts will recall their sentimental ties with the Formula 1, often their first timepiece in their horological journey.
This is as faithful of a reissue as we’ll get from TAG Heuer right now, and budding watch fans should be pleased with the result. To TAG Heuer’s credit, a great deal of research has gone into perfecting and replicating this iconic collection’s proportions, materials, and aesthetic for the modern-day consumer. Sure, it would have been nice to see a full lume dial, a distinguishing feature on some of the original pieces—why this wasn’t done is lost on me—and perhaps a more approachable price point, but there’s no doubt these will become an instant hit in the days to come.
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The TAG Heuer Formula 1 | Kith collection will be available on Friday, May 3rd, exclusively in-store at select TAG Heuer and Kith locations in Miami, and available starting Monday, May 6th, at select TAG Heuer boutiques, all Kith shops, and online at Kith.com. To see the full collection, visit tagheuer.com
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8 Fascinating Facts You Didn’t Know About Aston Martin
The British sports car company is most famous as the vehicle of choice for James Bond, but Aston Martin has an interesting history beyond 007.
Aston Martin will forever be associated with James Bond, ever since everyone’s favourite spy took delivery of his signature silver DB5 in the 1964 film Goldfinger. But there’s a lot more to the history of this famed British sports car brand beyond its association with the fictional British Secret Service agent.
Let’s dive into the long and colourful history of Aston Martin.
The origin of the Aston Martin name
The company that would become Aston Martin started out as a car dealership. In 1912, Englishmen Robert Bamford and Lionel Martin partnered to sell cars, but soon after they decided to build their own models. Their first prototype debuted in 1915, named in honour of Martin, a racing driver, and his favourite racing venue, Aston Hills. Thus, the name Aston Martin was born.
A speed-demon co-founder banned from driving
Aston Martin co-founder Lionel Martin wasn’t just a keen racing driver—he was an all-out speed demon. As a student, Martin won numerous gruelling bicycle racing records, including riding nearly the full width of England in one 22-hour stretch. He competed in motorcycle and sidecar races and automotive hillclimb competitions. It seems he also brought that need for speed to the public roadways: In 1909, having neglected to pay a previous speeding fine, Martin was caught driving 41.5 km/ph in London and was banned from driving for two years—during which he set yet another cross-country bicycle record.
A tractor company takes over
The years after World War I were tumultuous for Aston Martin, with financial difficulties and numerous takeovers. In 1947, Aston Martin went up for sale and was purchased by David Brown Limited, a company that specialised in farm tractors and industrial gears. Sir David Brown, grandson of the company’s founder, was a lifelong car enthusiast and racer, having built his own competition cars while working as an engineer at the family company. The first car built by Aston Martin after this takeover was called the DB1, named after the tractor company (and the man) that had saved the carmaker.
An indirect connection to Bentley
Around the same time that Sir David Brown took over Aston Martin, he purchased another struggling British carmaker, Lagonda. The company was developing a revolutionary twin-cam six-cylinder engine called the LB6, and Sir David wanted the engine for his new line of Aston Martin sports cars. The Lagonda engine had been designed by none other than W.O. Bentley—the man who co-founded Bentley Motors, who had long since been pushed out of the company bearing his name.
The history of the DB Series
Aston Martin built seven vehicles named in honour of owner Sir David Brown: The DB1, DB2, DB3, DB4, DB5, DB6, and the combo-breaker DBS all bore Sir David’s initials. In 1972, Sir David sold the car company, and the new owners ended the DB series of vehicles, but the name was revived in 1993 with the DB7 in honour of Sir David—who himself was given an honorary position at the company that same year.
Bond, James Bond
Of course, the most famous Aston Martin of them all is the DB5. Just over 1,000 examples were built between 1963 and 1965, but millions worldwide know this as the James Bond car. In the books, author Ian Fleming had specified an earlier Aston Martin DB Mark III as Bond’s car. Still, the DB5 was introduced in the 1964 Bond film Goldfinger, equipped with gadgets including machine guns, smoke screens, oil slicks, an ejector seat, and rotating license plates. Bond has driven several Aston Martin models over the years, including a V8 Vantage, a V12 Vanquish, and two DBS models, but the original DB5 will always be considered the quintessential Bond car.
The angular years
Today, the Aston Martin badge is most closely associated with swooping, evocatively curvy car designs, but in the 1970s the company was obsessed with angular, wedge-shaped designs. The trend began in 1976 with the Aston Martin Lagonda, a shockingly unconventional four-door luxury sedan with “folded-paper” body styling and the world’s first all-digital instrument panel. The Lagonda’s styling was further evolved in 1979 with the Bulldog, a radical concept car with gullwing doors and a sharply pointed nose. The Bulldog was meant to become the fastest road car on earth, but the project was abandoned before production could begin.
For Bond’s eyes only
While most of James Bond’s Aston Martins have been commercially available to anyone who could afford one, the DB10 seen in the 2015 film Spectre was exclusive to 007. As Aston Martin executive Marek Reichman explained to Variety, director Sam Mendes, producer Barbara Broccoli, and Bond star Daniel Craig were touring Aston Martin’s design studios when they saw a concept sketch on the wall. The Bond team insisted that this should be 007’s next car, and Aston Martin spent the next six months furiously working to turn the drawing into a real-world car. The DB10 was unveiled during the launch of the film Spectre, and eight of the 10 examples built were featured in the movie, with the remaining two used for promotional appearances.
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What Venice’s New Tourist Tax Means for Your Next Trip
The Italian city will now charge visitors an entry fee during peak season.
Visiting the Floating City just got a bit more expensive.
Venice is officially the first metropolis in the world to start implementing a day-trip fee in an effort to help the Italian hot spot combat overtourism during peak season, The Associated Press reported. The new program, which went into effect, requires travellers to cough up roughly €5 (about $AUD8.50) per person before they can explore the city’s canals and historic sites. Back in January, Venice also announced that starting in June, it would cap the size of tourist groups to 25 people and prohibit loudspeakers in the city centre and the islands of Murano, Burano, and Torcello.
“We need to find a new balance between the tourists and residents,’ Simone Venturini, the city’s top tourism official, told AP News. “We need to safeguard the spaces of the residents, of course, and we need to discourage the arrival of day-trippers on some particular days.”
During this trial phase, the fee only applies to the 29 days deemed the busiest—between April 25 and July 14—and tickets will remain valid from 8:30 am to 4 pm. Visitors under 14 years of age will be allowed in free of charge in addition to guests with hotel reservations. However, the latter must apply online beforehand to request an exemption. Day-trippers can also pre-pay for tickets online via the city’s official tourism site or snap them up in person at the Santa Lucia train station.
“With courage and great humility, we are introducing this system because we want to give a future to Venice and leave this heritage of humanity to future generations,” Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro said in a statement on X (formerly known as Twitter) regarding the city’s much-talked-about entry fee.
Despite the mayor’s backing, it’s apparent that residents weren’t totally pleased with the program. The regulation led to protests and riots outside of the train station, The Independent reported. “We are against this measure because it will do nothing to stop overtourism,” resident Cristina Romieri told the outlet. “Moreover, it is such a complex regulation with so many exceptions that it will also be difficult to enforce it.”
While Venice is the first city to carry out the new day-tripper fee, several other European locales have introduced or raised tourist taxes to fend off large crowds and boost the local economy. Most recently, Barcelona increased its city-wide tourist tax. Similarly, you’ll have to pay an extra “climate crisis resilience” tax if you plan on visiting Greece that will fund the country’s disaster recovery projects.
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Omega Reveals a New Speedmaster Ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympics
Your first look at the new Speedmaster Chronoscope, designed in the colour theme of the Paris Olympics.
The starters are on the blocks, and with less than 100 days to go until the Paris 2024 Olympics, luxury Swiss watchmaker Omega was bound to release something spectacular to mark its bragging rights as the official timekeeper for the Summer Games. Enter the new 43mm Speedmaster Chronoscope, available in new colourways—gold, black, and white—in line with the colour theme of the Olympic Games in Paris this July.
So, what do we get in this nicely-wrapped, Olympics-inspired package? Technically, there are four new podium-worthy iterations of the iconic Speedmaster.
The new versions present handsomely in stainless steel or 18K Moonshine Gold—the brand’s proprietary yellow gold known for its enduring shine. The steel version has an anodised aluminium bezel and a stainless steel bracelet or vintage-inspired perforated leather strap. The Moonshine Gold iteration boasts a ceramic bezel; it will most likely appease Speedy collectors, particularly those with an affinity for Omega’s long-standing role as stewards of the Olympic Games.
Notably, each watch bears an attractive white opaline dial; the background to three dark grey timing scales in a 1940s “snail” design. Of course, this Speedmaster Chronoscope is special in its own right. For the most part, the overall look of the Speedmaster has remained true to its 1957 origins. This Speedmaster, however, adopts Omega’s Chronoscope design from 2021, including the storied tachymeter scale, along with a telemeter, and pulsometer scale—essentially, three different measurements on the wrist.
While the technical nature of this timepiece won’t interest some, others will revel in its theatrics. Turn over each timepiece, and instead of a transparent crystal caseback, there is a stamped medallion featuring a mirror-polished Paris 2024 logo, along with “Paris 2024” and the Olympic Rings—a subtle nod to this year’s games.
Powering this Olympiad offering—and ensuring the greatest level of accuracy—is the Co-Axial Master Chronometer Calibre 9908 and 9909, certified by METAS.
A Speedmaster to commemorate the Olympic Games was as sure a bet as Mondo Deplantis winning gold in the men’s pole vault—especially after Omega revealed its Olympic-edition Seamaster Diver 300m “Paris 2024” last year—but they delivered a great addition to the legacy collection, without gimmickry.
However, the all-gold Speedmaster is 85K at the top end of the scale, which is a lot of money for a watch of this stature. By comparison, the immaculate Speedmaster Moonshine gold with a sun-brushed green PVD “step” dial is 15K cheaper, albeit without the Chronoscope complications.
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The Omega Speedmaster Chronoscope in stainless steel with a leather strap is priced at $15,725; stainless steel with steel bracelet at $16,275; 18k Moonshine Gold on leather strap $54,325; and 18k Moonshine Gold with matching gold bracelet $85,350, available at Omega boutiques now.
Discover the collection here
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Here’s What Goes Into Making Jay-Z’s $1,800 Champagne
We put Armand de Brignac Blanc de Noirs Assemblage No. 4 under the microsope.
In our quest to locate the most exclusive and exciting wines for our readers, we usually ask the question, “How many bottles of this were made?” Often, we get a general response based on an annual average, although many Champagne houses simply respond, “We do not wish to communicate our quantities.” As far as we’re concerned, that’s pretty much like pleading the Fifth on the witness stand; yes, you’re not incriminating yourself, but anyone paying attention knows you’re probably guilty of something. In the case of some Champagne houses, that something is making a whole lot of bottles—millions of them—while creating an illusion of rarity.
We received the exact opposite reply regarding Armand de Brignac Blanc de Noirs Assemblage No. 4. Yasmin Allen, the company’s president and CEO, told us only 7,328 bottles would be released of this Pinot Noir offering. It’s good to know that with a sticker price of around $1,800, it’s highly limited, but it still makes one wonder what’s so exceptional about it.
Known by its nickname, Ace of Spades, for its distinctive and decorative metallic packaging, Armand de Brignac is owned by Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy and Jay-Z and is produced by Champagne Cattier. Each bottle of Assemblage No. 4 is numbered; a small plate on the back reads “Assemblage Four, [X,XXX]/7,328, Disgorged: 20 April, 2023.” Prior to disgorgement, it spent seven years in the bottle on lees after primary fermentation mostly in stainless steel with a small amount in concrete. That’s the longest of the house’s Champagnes spent on the lees, but Allen says the winemaking team tasted along the way and would have disgorged earlier than planned if they’d felt the time was right.
Chef de cave, Alexandre Cattier, says the wine is sourced from some of the best Premier and Grand Cru Pinot Noir–producing villages in the Champagne region, including Chigny-les-Roses, Verzenay, Rilly-la-Montagne, Verzy, Ludes, Mailly-Champagne, and Ville-sur-Arce in the Aube département. This is considered a multi-vintage expression, using wine from a consecutive trio of vintages—2013, 2014, and 2015—to create an “intense and rich” blend. Seventy percent of the offering is from 2015 (hailed as one of the finest vintages in recent memory), with 15 percent each from the other two years.
This precisely crafted Champagne uses only the tête de cuvée juice, a highly selective extraction process. As Allen points out, “the winemakers solely take the first and freshest portion of the gentle cuvée grape press,” which assures that the finished wine will be the highest quality. Armand de Brignac used grapes from various sites and three different vintages so the final product would reflect the house signature style. This is the fourth release in a series that began with Assemblage No. 1. “Testing different levels of intensity of aromas with the balance of red and dark fruits has been a guiding principle between the Blanc de Noirs that followed,” Allen explains.
The CEO recommends allowing the Assemblage No. 4 to linger in your glass for a while, telling us, “Your palette will go on a journey, evolving from one incredible aroma to the next as the wine warms in your glass where it will open up to an extraordinary length.” We found it to have a gorgeous bouquet of raspberry and Mission fig with hints of river rock; as it opened, notes of toasted almond and just-baked brioche became noticeable. With striking acidity and a vein of minerality, it has luscious nectarine, passion fruit, candied orange peel, and red plum flavors with touches of beeswax and a whiff of baking spices on the enduring finish. We enjoyed our bottle with a roast chicken rubbed with butter and herbes de Provence and savored the final, extremely rare sip with a bit of Stilton. Unfortunately, the pairing possibilities are not infinite with this release; there are only 7,327 more ways to enjoy yours.
