Piper Heidsieck is one of the Champagne regions most iconic Champagne houses and was founded in 1785 by Florens-Louis Heidsieck in the village of Reims.
To this day the Champagne house still makes Champagne in the same style and to the same rigorous standards as implemented by M. Heidsieck himself more than 200 years ago.
Over the last 200 years the house has created some of the most novel bottle designs and has become synonymous with high quality brut Champagne and toasty, magnificent vintage champagne. To celebrate its 100th birthday in 1885 the house commissioned Carl Fabergé – jeweler to the Russian Tsar and creator of the famous Fabergé egg – to make a bottle of serious distinction. He came up with a bottle that was encrusted in diamonds, gold and lapis-lazuli (a light blue coloured ore) which was made in extremely low quantities and nowadays is near enough, if not, impossible to find.
In 1976 the house asked Van Cleef and Arpels to dress a special bottle for the Rare 1976. The bottle travelled the world from Paris and New York to Hong Kong and Tokyo, accompanied by armed guards and footmen.
To celebrate the recent releases of the Piper Heidsieck vintage 2004 and Rare 2002 Debra Meiburg, the famous Hong Kong Master of Wine, hosted some of the territory’s most prestigious sommeliers and trade professionals.
Debra Meiburg MW is a professional wine speaker and her “tongue-in-cheek” approach to talking about and tasting wine went down extremely well with the attendees, especially as she has a knack for putting young, up and coming sommeliers in the spotlight to foster their ongoing education.
Sommeliers from some of Hong Kong’s top hotels were joined by Nelson Chow, Chairman of the Hong Kong Sommelier Association, in tasting the full range of Piper Heidsieck Champagnes available in the territory.
The wines included the Piper Heidsieck Cuvée Brut NV, Cuvée Rosé Sauvage NV, Charles Heidsieck Brut Réserve NV and of course the vintage 2004 and 2002 Rare.
Debra extended her knowledge of the Champagne house, the terroir, the winemaking processes of the past and present and even made local wine expert, Chris Chow, Sabrage a bottle of Champagne (that is the art of removing the cork from the bottle with a rather large sword!)
Piper Heidsieck enjoys a large percentage of the Hong Kong Champagne market and is available from Telford International Company Limited.
Contributed by Alasdair Nicol, TLN Editor – Hong Kong
