Charles Heidsieck Champagne

Charles Heidsieck cuvées

Brut Réserve

The quintessence of the house style Brut Réserve Charles Heidsieck is one of the most admired non-vintage Bruts in Champagne. Its blend is based on a precise equation: 60% vintage wines in equal thirds Pinot Noir, Meunier and Chardonnay complemented by 40% of reserve wines with an average age of ten years, from 60 different crus, matured for more than four years in crayères.

Of the sixty crus used, three play a key role:

• Chardonnay d'Oger, a Côte des Blancs Grand Cru, which brings roundness and generosity;
• the Pinot Noir d'Ambonnay, a Montagne de Reims Grand Cru, the backbone of the cuvée;
• the Meunier from Verneuil in the Marne Valley, which rounds out the wine and gives it its melt-in-the-mouth texture.

Each bottle bears the year of cellaring and disgorgement: a unique transparency that makes Brut Réserve a champagne to be followed over time.

Rosé Réserve

Generous and precise Rosé Réserve combines structure and finesse, with aromas of red fruits, sweet spices and an elegant floral finish. It has the same depth and smoothness as the Brut Réserve, but is more fruity and expressive.

Blanc de Blancs

Created in 1949 Blanc de Blancs Charles Heidsieck was relaunched in 2018 to highlight the House's mastery of the art of blending and their ability to create great white wines, as with this 100% Chardonnay. A more taut, mineral and fresh expression of the Charles Heidsieck style, as a counterpoint to the brioche richness of Brut Réserve.

Blanc des Millénaires

The house's absolute prestige cuvée, one of the rarest and most admired in Champagne. The house unveils this cuvée only during great vintages, barely a dozen since its creation. The Blanc des Millénaires champagnes champagnes are made from five magnificent Côte des Blancs terroirs.

Did you know?

In 1867, Charles Heidsieck acquired the crayères de Reims, cellars dating back to the 3rd century B.C., a veritable underground cathedral with over 8 kilometers of galleries thirty metres below ground. These same crayères, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2015, still house every bottle of the house, some for over forty years.

Discover Charles Heidsieck champagne

The house of a visionary dandy, founded in Reims in 1851 by a man who almost lost everything and won it back. Charles-Camille Heidsieck was born in 1822 into a prominent family from Reims, whose winemaking tradition goes back to his great-uncle Florens-Louis Heidsieck, who founded Heidsieck & Co. in 1785. An adventurer, a pioneer and an epicurean, he alone embodies the spirit that still drives every cuvée of the house today: audacity as a method, depth as a signature, and an absolute conviction that time spent in the cellar is the only true measure of luxury.

The history of Charles Heidsieck

Charles Heidsieck's story is more like an adventure novel than a business chronicle. When he founded his own company in 1851, at the age of 29, it was not an heir who took over, but a man who deliberately chose to forge his own path, outside the family furrow. The following year, he crossed the Atlantic, sniffed out the potential of the American market before anyone else, and quickly made a name for himself in the most exclusive circles of New York high society. His champagne, presence and showmanship earned him a nickname that would go down in history: Champagne Charlie.

Business flourished, until the Civil War turned everything upside down. On his fourth trip to the United States, Charles Heidsieck tries to recover large debts to save his company from sinking. The trap was sprung: accused of espionage by the Northern general Benjamin Franklin Butler, he was imprisoned in Louisiana in squalid conditions. His release, obtained through the direct intervention of Abraham Lincoln, became the subject of American legal chronicles under the name Heidsieck Case. He returned to France ruined, in poor health, his house bankrupt.

The rest is a bit of a surprise. An American vicar arrived at his door to announce that he had inherited some land in Denver, a small loan once granted to the New York importer who had co-founded the Colorado capital. The sale of this land enabled him to rebuild everything. In 1867, convinced that a champagne's greatness is played out in the cellar much more than in the vineyard, he bought out old Gallo-Roman chalk quarries to age his wines in ideal conditions - the chalk quarries that still house every bottle of the house today.

Since 2023, the house has been in the hands of Élise Losfelt, the new cellar master from a line of six generations of winemakers, who perpetuates with the same exacting standards the art of blending that has made the house's reputation. Since 2011, the house has belonged to the Descours family's EPI group.

Charles Heidsieck Champagne terroir and style

The house has forged long-standing partnerships with winegrowers in the Montagne de Reims renowned for its Pinot Noirs powerful and structured. The crus selected by Charles Heidsieck are characterized by their favorable exposure and the chalky nature of their soils. Villages such as Ambonnay, Bouzy and Verzy are particularly prized for the power and complexity of their Pinot Noirs, while crus such as Avize and Le Mesnil-sur-Oger produce Chardonnays of remarkable finesse.

The house's aromatic signature is unique in Champagne: the Brut Réserve blend is based on 60 crus, with 40% reserve wines averaging ten years of age, an extraordinary proportion that gives the cuvées their creamy texture, pastry depth and exceptional ageing capacity. In 1987, Charles Heidsieck became the first Champagne house to indicate the year of cellaring on each bottle, affirming its conviction that time is an ingredient in its own right.

Over a period of twenty years, Charles Heidsieck's successive cellar masters have collectively won the title of Sparkling Winemaker of the Year twelve times, awarded by London's International Wine Challenge. A consistency that speaks volumes for the consistency of the house style, above and beyond the individual.