Simon Brewer

I drink too much champagne when I'm happy and when I'm sad. Sometimes I drink it when I’m alone. When I have company, I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it when I'm not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise, I never touch it, unless I'm thirsty. It's almost 50 years since Madame Lily Bollinger gave that answer in an interview to the London Daily Mail to the question, 'When do you drink champagne?' So today, we're talking champagne. We're not drinking it as I have a shoulder operation in a few hours and so no liquids ahead of my general anaesthetic, plus it's 09:30 here in London, 10:30 in Champagne, where my guest is, but it's an immense pleasure to welcome today the Chairman and CEO of the Bollinger Group, Etienne Bizot. Etienne, bienvenue à la Money Maze Podcast.

Etienne Bizot

Thank you, Simon. Very pleased to join you to this podcast.

Simon Brewer

Well, I believe we're similar vintages and I know that you studied at the Catholique d'Arts et Métiers and graduated in '85, which is the year that I graduated as well and later studied at the HEC business school in France, a famous business school. But I guess my first question is, did you grow up looking at the vineyards from your bedroom window?

Etienne Bizot

Almost yes. Because even in my family, my father and mother, were living right in the center of Bollinger champagne. I was in a boarding school from the age of 12 up to the age of 18 and afterwards moved to this engineering school in the north of France in Lille. So of course, I was spending weekends in the house of Bollinger, rode a lot of bicycles in the vineyards.

Simon Brewer

What do you remember most from your childhood?

Etienne Bizot

Something which was very impressive, especially when you're five or six or seven years old, is the champagne sense. When you look at all these bottles, it's quite impressive to see all these bottles. And secondly, it is a bit dark, and we were running around a bit in the cellars. The workers were not always very happy about that, but that was quite interesting for a child of five or six years old to see all these bottles laying in the cellars for so many years.

Simon Brewer

Well, we're going to turn to Bollinger in a minute. But I know you went to business school. What did you do before you joined Bollinger full time?

Etienne Bizot

First of all, as all French people at this time, we had to make military requirements. So I spent about 18 or 20 months in the French Navy. I was fortunate to be on a boat in New Caledonia on the other side of the planet. A great experience, a great experience in management and working with great people. And then I moved to an American company called 3M during four years in the medical care, because the company was 3M Healthcare and I was based in the middle of France working as an engineer in this business, especially to remodel completely the factory of all these medicines in France. And then I moved 33 years ago now in 1992 to Bollinger to start this 32 years of experience with this wonderful company.

Simon Brewer

Let's talk about Bollinger. One thing that struck me is just help me with the pronunciation. The English say Bollinger, but I think the French say Bollinger. How should we say it?

Etienne Bizot

The beauty of this name, you can pronounce it easily in all the countries where you're living. When you talk about the champagne, you said Bollinger. The people working for Bollinger say Bollinger. That used to be the same. In France, we say Bollinger. In the UK, you say Bollinger. You can also say Bolly as well. In Germany because as you know, Bollinger is German origin, you said Bollinger. That's how you pronounce. But let's move on to Bollinger as we are English-speaking today.

Simon Brewer

Well, as I did my research, I discovered that in fact, Queen Victoria made Bollinger the official champagne of the royal court in 1884 and you've be making champagnes since 1829. Can you just give us a sense of the history and how you stayed one unified enterprise?

Etienne Bizot

When I talk about Bollinger, I must admit that the story of the Bollinger family is the most passionate, the most interesting for me, because since its foundation 1829, the Bollinger family is still the owner of this brand and up to now the group because, we'll discuss about this later on, we have other wineries in France and outside France. We should consider that there are two periods within the history of this Bollinger family. The first period which started in 1829 was the foundation, up to 1941 when Jacques Bollinger, the grandson of the founder, Jacques Bollinger also died. During these times they first created the brand, they had to face quite big things, quite big challenges like the 1929 crisis, but they also started to establish the main pillars of this brand. One is something you've just said which is the Royal Warrant given by Victoria to Bollinger. The second is, we own quite big vineyards now, but the establishment of the Bollinger vineyards really took place in these times because in 1941, Bollinger was owning I would say 120, 130 hectares, which is about 300 acres of vines, which makes Bollinger one of the biggest owners of vineyards because the Bollinger family always understood, and we still do, by the way, that in order to guarantee the style and the quality of wines, you need to control your production and you need to control your vineyards. Because as soon as you produce the wine with the same grapes, that's clearly a great achievement. One other big step made on the name Bollinger was the partnership with Mentzendorff. Bollinger has been very successful and very strong in the UK and it's mainly linked to this long-term partnership we have with Mentzendorff which goes back to 1850, 1860 and is still the case. And then the beauty of the works which has been done by the Bollinger family also in these times is the development of American markets, Scandinavian markets, Russian markets and European markets. So that is the first period. And then suddenly, Jacques Bollinger died in 1941 from a disease, and his wife, Mrs. Bollinger, as we call her Tante Lily, who is by the way, the sister of my grandmother, found herself alone as the head of the Bollinger house with her cousin. She was really loyal and she has always been very loyal to the spirits and the strategy implemented by her husband and her father in law and so on. And the spirit of it has always been to maintain the quality but based on reality, on real factors like vineyards, like casks, like Pinot Noir. We'll come back from this. She had the beauty of being assisted by a great cellar master. And she shortly then took her time to travel in the UK launch. The second addition of Mrs. Bollinger of taking to the business was innovation. She always considered that champagne was not a marketing wine, but anything that we do to grow the business and to grow the brand has to be done with wine which has a terroir origin. So she introduced first Vieilles Vignes Françaises which is a wine which is made out of pre-phylloxera vineyards, or non-grafted vineyards, which happened to be a great success. The second innovation was the R.D. The R.D. was her answer to the trend at this time of the prestige cuvées from other houses. She considered that with all the quality effort that she had done on a wine selecting the best grapes from vineyards, vinification in casks, that she considered and she proved it that by aging the wines longer than usual, let's say 14 years, 15 years, we could produce a wine with a development of third aromas, which was quite unusual to be frank in the champagne industry, because champagne image used not to be the wine which has the ability of aging. And she was the first to introduce the fact that come on, guys, come on consumers, champagne wine has a great ability of aging so let them age. And she released R.D 61 and with an aging of I would say 14 years, so that she proved a lot. She, unfortunately, died in 1976. But she passed the leadership of the business of the brands to two other nephews because she had no children, which means Claude d’Hautefeuille and my father, Christian. Claude d’Hautefeuille ran the brand between ‘71 to ’79 and my father ran the brand from ‘71 up to 1990. So at the end, this house and this group now because it's now a group of different wineries is still owned by the same family, 193 years now, and my aim, and I think we could manage it, is to go over 200 years with the same family in 2029.

Simon Brewer

Fantastic. Well, that's a lovely history. Thank you. So we're going to talk about branding, and what a better place to start than James Bond. The association, I understand, is a 40-year partnership and 14 films and I have had the pleasure of my research and going back over some of these films that I've watched so many times. I'd be a sad person to reveal the actual number. But my understanding is at some point, Albert Broccoli was making the Bond films, visits the winery and has dinner with your uncle, and it was a great success and everything started. Now, is that folklore or fact?

Etienne Bizot

Yeah, you're right. The beauty of this partnership, it's based on the relationship between two families, the Broccoli family and the Bollinger, and it lays on this private relationship. So it started 40 years ago when Cubby Broccoli met with my father, Christian. So they get along together, they move on. The relationship is between Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson and myself, but also all the team of Bollinger together with a team in production. And what I like in this relationship, it has been a long term one. If you want to characterize a bit the way we work in our family, is we’re successful as soon as we are loyal to a partnership all over the world. And James Bond is clearly one of it. We have other ones. We mentioned Mentzendorff, 107 years working together. And that's the beauty of the strengths of the brand of Bollinger is these long-term partnerships and James Bond is one of it.

Simon Brewer

Right. Well, I was very delighted to reconnect with Roger Moore asking for the ‘73 Bollinger in Live and Let Die through to Daniel Craig asking for La Grande Année  along with his beluga caviar. So tell me a little bit about how you would like the brand to be understood and perceived.

Etienne Bizot

What is very important for us is consistency. The consistency of the quality is clearly a major point for the brand Bollinger. That is what our customers or consumers all over the world are expecting from us. They are expecting that we maintain the quality and the style consistent during all the vintages, all the non-vintages and so on. So that's one point.  The second point is, as I said, linked to the loyalty to Mrs. Bollinger and to the Bollinger family. Champagne is a wine. Champagne is a wine which needs to be tasted as many other cask grade wines. And the quality of this wine is linked on a few things like the terrior, like cask, like type of grapes and so on. That's the second point. And finally, the other point is just take your time and enjoy. It's a bit the phrase that you mentioned of Lily when she was drinking Bollinger. Enjoy. Enjoy with Bollinger. Enjoy with lots of Bollinger. So that's the way we like our brands to be perceived and positioned.

Simon Brewer

So let's just talk about this vintage versus non-vintage. You discussed earlier on how it was the initiative of Lily Bollinger to age the bottles. We've seen a world in the last 20 years particularly where the extraordinary wealth that has developed across multiple geographies has created almost a super wealth. We had Giles English from Bremont Watches talking about how some of their special collection of their luxury watches are sought after particularly because of the uniqueness. Gary Boom, who you obviously know, as the Co-Founder of Bordeaux Index talked a lot about the demand for specialist wines. How do you think about that segment of the market and the types of buyers who opt for your vintages?

Etienne Bizot

In order to answer, Simon, your question, I think you need to go through the kind of wines that Champagne is proposing to its customers. There are globally two kinds of wine. There is non-vintage and vintage. Talking about non-vintage, it should be the signature of the house. The vintage is also a signature of the house but also as a signature of the harvest and the vintage. And there is now a growing demand from consumers for premium wines and champagne. Because as I said…they understood that champagne is now a wine and it can be enjoyed exactly as a great with a great bottle, especially the premium wines. And then premium wines for the premium wines, you talk about vintage. As far as Bollinger is concerned, we have basically two vintages, one is called La Grande Année and one is called the R.D. When you talk about La Grande Année, for example, we’re selling at the moment the 2014. And when you talk about the R.D, we're just launching the 2008 vintage. But we also propose to consumers terroir wine, which means the wine which is coming from a specific piece of land. We mentioned before the Vieilles Vignes Françaises which is coming from the half a hectare in Aÿ. But the fact is it's not only coming from Aÿ, one of the best possible vines, but also it's a pre-phylloxera vineyard. But we also propose La Côte aux Enfants, which is also a piece of land which is up in the vineyards of Aÿ which is total, 5 hectares. So we produce two kinds of wines out of it. We produce the red wine, Coteaux Champenois, but we also announced last year, the champagne wine, sparkling wines, which was the first time ever coming only from the spice of the vines and it's 100% Pinot Noir. So there is the story, a story to talk about this wine, which is unique. And we also launched last year what we call PNVZ, which is just to enhance or to demonstrate the simplicity of the Pinot Noir. Because the Pinot Noir, if there is one or two things that you need to remember on Bollinger, is that it is a specialist of Pinot Noir from the Grand Cuit and it is exactly what are we doing was his PN, which means Pinot Noir, and then we attach to it the name of a village; Verzenay, and so on. Again, you mentioned Bordeaux Index, they love that we come to down with new things. The beauty of the PN is we can change and we’re changing every year the village. So we came to them with La Côte aux Enfants, we have the Vieilles Vignes Françaises, so we need to surprise consumers by proposing them new wines but always linked to the DNA of Bollinger, which could be characterized by four or five major pillars, as mentioned Pinot Noir first. The second is the Grand and Premiere Crut classification of our vineyards. The third is most of our wines are part of our vintage but all our vintages and premium wines are fermented in used casks and finally what is also very typical to Bollinger is the time we are giving the wines to age, which means we are needing enough time for the wines to be completely tasteable and drinkable and that is why La Grande Année is 7 years and the R.D. is 15 or 14 years. But the Vieilles Vignes could be 6 years, the PN age will be 6 to 7 years. Time is a key factor for Bollinger.

Simon Brewer

Now, you have a second brand, Ayala, and funnily enough, I was being entertained at Brooks club in St. James, and it is their house champagne. Now, I understand that it's a zero-dosage champagne, if I've got my research correct. So maybe, could you just explain a little bit about the interest in this zero-dosage, which I understand means no sugar and what the second brand gives you?

Etienne Bizot

First, I will answer your second question. When we discussed with the previous owners of Ayala, let's say in 2004, we were looking for a brand with a different kind of position. Ayala, which by the way, was the founder of the Syndicat de Grandes Marques in the 20th century, Ayala was very well reputated. And it was reputated exactly for what you said, which means that they were kind of a pioneer in the zero-dosage wine. But it was also the fact that this brand was proposing wine was more Chardonnay than Bollinger. Chardonnay, Le Blanc de Blancs- Ayala is selling Le Blanc de Blancs but the majority of the blends of Ayala is Chardonnay, gives a different taste, of course to the wine. It was to address another kind of consumers who are more keen of drinking more freshness when you find it in the Chardonnay. So it has been quite a successful the acquisition into 2005 and we are developing. I’m pleased that you had the ability to drink a glass of Ayala at the Brooks, but there are many other places in the world that you can taste the Ayala. It's quite a very interesting development we had within the last 20 years with Ayala.

Simon Brewer

I'm working my way around so I can try it in as many places as possible.

Etienne Bizot

Simon, I'll send you an email with all the addresses you can find some Ayala.

Simon Brewer

Okay, there will be no podcast for next six months. Right. This is interesting because what we've got is the cultivation of smaller outfits. We've got different styles of champagnes; we've got different approaches driven by consumers wanting to try different things. And behind all of this is climate change. A question from a former colleague at Morgan Stanley, and very knowledgeable oenophile, Chris Van Aeken, is to what extent is this changing climate going to require different planting of grapes, different rootstocks and even more regional expansion?

Etienne Bizot

That is a huge question. A huge question which doesn't concern only us. It concerns many, many other industries. But as far as the wine industry is concerned, without any doubt, we'll have to cope with it. It's going to be a challenge without any doubt. And of course, we're working on it. Let me start by the fact that looking at champagne, the CIVC (Comité Interprofessionnel du vin de Champagne) has decided to really invest a lot to support roads and houses to face against this climate change. They've increased the budget for that, which is important because you cannot cope with these challenges without investing in it. So what's going to happen in the future, maybe some great variety. I don't think it's going to change, but maybe some different drones, maybe some different way of planting vineyards. The question of spraying water in the vineyard, which is totally forbidden at the moment in France, maybe that's going to be something which can happen, we'll see. But if you look long term, the beauty of champagne is the fact that the collectivity between those houses decided to cope collectively against the impact of the climate change. It doesn't mean that the houses themselves are also working on our sides, and we may talk about this a bit later, we have vineyards in our part of the world, in France and in the US. And the decision we've taken is to engage all our 900 acres of vines towards organic certifications. So that's something which we decided to do and we also engaged in some kind of a, not certification, but some kind of engagement toward climate change. It could be electricity, it could be carbon print.

Simon Brewer

Yeah, reduction of carbon footprint.

Etienne Bizot

Carbon footprint. So we are on our way, which means, as many companies in the wine industry, we are on our way. It's a long way, it's a long track, but you need to start somewhere, and that's what we're doing, first by the organic vineyards and also, we'll see what kind of commitment we can take in terms of carbon footprint. We'll see.

Simon Brewer

So we actually had Xavier Rolet on the show the year and a bit ago, and of course, he owns Chêne Bleu, a very different terroir, very different temperature. But he was talking about how they've changed many of their processes because of that intense heat. So let's just put the lens on Group Bollinger and their other interests. I noticed that the group owns the Maison Chanson in Burgundy, and also vineyards in Oregon. So maybe explain the global and the growth strategy.

Etienne Bizot

I think it's a question of what the family wants to do with these assets. Let's say 30 years ago, the family decided that she wants to grow in other parts of Champagne. The first acquisition that the family has done was in the Loire valley, because we also own vineyards in the Loire valley, which is in Saumur, but since recently, we became one of the biggest owners of vineyards in Sancerre about 200 acres of vinyl sensor, which is quite a big amount. So that was the first external acquisition and that was in 1973. And remember, because we are the same age, I think, remember '73 was the first petrol crisis and it has affected a lot Bollinger and the family sold that by investing in the Loire valley producing Crémant de Loire this time, that could be a good way of diversification. Afterwards, the first biggest acquisition was done with Burgundy with the Domaine Chanson. So the Domaine Chanson is about 40 hectares of premier and grand cru. And maybe we can talk about Burgundy, but it's clearly the reason of course, the using the same grape as Champagne, which is Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, but not for the same kind of wine, of course, but it's mainly because of the terrior of Burgundy. Then we also moved to another brand of champagne in 2005 with Ayala as we discussed before, and that's amazing. It was more an opportunity than a real strategy. The opportunity was to support the Delamain family cognac, and now we own the Delamain cognac, which is a tiny brand versus many other brands.  And the Delamain cognac has a characteristic of selling only so, which are more than 10 years old, and in the case of Delamain, it’s about 20 years old. And that was for Delamain. And then we've recently in the middle of the confinement in the middle of the COVID, we recently acquired this vineyard of property in Oregon, which is clearly for us the best place to produce great Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in the United States.

Simon Brewer

Now, of course, that leaves one geography you haven't mentioned and I'm going to smile because I'm sitting in it, and that, of course, is England where some of your competitors like Taittinger decided to invest. I'm not biased here because my preference will always be to drink champagne, I think. What is your perspective on this enthusiasm around really climate change, but interesting soil?

Etienne Bizot

First of all, I'd be an English, a Brit, I will always favor a bit of UK wines and English wine and I think that's smart for a few investors in the UK to have invested in sparkling wine. Secondly, I have tasted many of them and I do realize that, yeah, they're doing very well. They have good terroir, like in Champagne. The climate is in favor of them. That's for sure. And what is interesting is that you mentioned champagne houses, yes, but majority of these sparkling wines are English investors. I don't want to give names, but I've met a few of them, which has been very courageous to invest in a sparkling wine operation, because it is very much capital consuming sparkling wine because planting vineyards starting from scratch, storing bottles, which means 2, 3, 4, 5 years building a facility to produce the wine, building hospitality because there is a growing demand of hospitality all over the world, including in the UK, and most of them have organized hospitality operations within the winery. So it's a big investment. So we haven't decided to go into this business yet for many reasons and it's difficult for me to go into details on that. But we are looking closely on the evolution of this sparkling wine operation in the UK, mainly because the UK is our major market.

Simon Brewer

Now, the champagne that we haven't spoken about and I'd love to understand, actually when you like to drink it and which part of the market it serves is rosé champagne.

Etienne Bizot

Yeah, rosé. If Tante Lily was sitting at my place, she would say never. She would say never because she always considered that it was not a great wine. That was her feeling. But we finally moved to rosé wine in 2008 when we launched our first rosé wine. We had before, La Grande Année Rosé, but for the rosé, we really launched it in 2008. It's not a fashion. It's clearly a long term trend in the wine business. Don't talk only about champagne, but talk about [inaudible], talked about I was recently in another country, they were also saying rosé, it should take south of France between rosé as well. So it's a real trend and it's amazing to see that, in fact, all these rosé categories are considered to be positioned at the same, not the same as champagne, but the same consumption occasion as champagne, which means a bit of celebration, aperitif, nice to have when you’re with friends, and so on. It's a wine which has a great attraction for the new generation, and that is key for us and the key for the development of a brand.

Simon Brewer

You have the, I'm going to say, luxury as a family and business of taking a long term view. What are the main changes that you would expect over the next 5 to 10 years in terms of both production and consumption, by which I mean new markets, new wines, what we may not expect right now?

Etienne Bizot

The main point is the impact of climate change. So it may impact the some wines, it may impact the level of degree in the wines and that is why I think UK is well positioned. That's for the production and of course, wine from other parts of the world. It could be United States, it could be South Africa, it could be all these countries in the world, China, how they will evolve, how they will develop. So that's one point. But I think in terms of consumption, I think the major change is linked to the ability that we have to talk directly to consumers through social media. If I'm back 30 years ago when I came to Bollinger, we were not discussing with consumers. We were discussing to the importer who were discussing to the shop, the restaurants, and they were talking to the consumers. And that is a big change to have the ability of engaging directly with the consumer, not to make business with them, because there are many specialists for that, but at least to explain and engage a direct relationship with them to explain, what are we doing, what is the characteristic of the Bollinger non-vintage the Cuvée, what is La Cote aux Enfants, what is a R.D., what is Vieilles Vignes Francaises, and all these modern ways of communicating with these consumers. It's clearly a big difference and a big change. It's started already, but it's going to improve and accelerate a bit in the future.

Simon Brewer

So I think you're hinting at something that is my next question, which is you've invested in Bordeaux Index. We had Gary Boom as a guest on the show in a very entertaining conversation last year, which if people listening to this episode haven't listened to it, Gary is fantastic and it's just enthralling. We've got technology underpinning Bordeaux Index, LiveTrade, ability to trade wines in a way that hasn't existed before and a professionalism that has come in the UK in a very fractured, fragmented, and some would say amateurish business. What does Bordeaux Index give you?

Etienne Bizot

First of all, I would like to say how much I love Gary Boom. He's a great guy. He's an enthusiastic guy. He's older than me but he looks younger than me. I love this guy. I love the team. They are very agile. They're very dynamic. They're very entrepreneurial. And that is not the reason why we've invested in Bordeaux Index, of course, but that was clearly the cherry on the cake because it's a great team. That's one point. But to answer your question, I think the reason why we invested and I wanted personally and pushed my family to do it because I believe the technology will support the connection, as we've discussed before, between the consumers and the house. As I said, I'm not saying we want to make business directly with these consumers because we have customer to do it like BI. But at least it's helped us with the help of the technology to explain what we are doing. The second reason is for us clearly BI, Bordeaux Index, is among the best wine merchants in the UK with the characteristic of selling in other continents like the United States and Asia. So that's clearly the way for us to understand this business and how can we improve the alpha of Bollinger and all our other wineries for the consumers addressed by BI. And finally, the third reason is LiveTrade. LiveTrade is addressing a market which is called a secondary market, which means the ability that our consumers can sell back to other consumers. And it's amazing to see that the luxury market in general is addressing this secondary market and they're looking very closely at what's happening in the secondary market. So it's interesting to see how the secondary market is moving, is developing. It's interesting to notice that I think without any surprise, only is the best grand cru or premier cru the best population are working in the secondary market, and also, the most reputated brands, the most reputated domain. And it helps us to better address the consumers with the right offer in terms of wine, and maybe winery to buy in the future, region to buy in the future. It’s to select always the one which are the most demanding by fine wine lovers and fine wine consumers.

Simon Brewer

So before we move to some general questions, we've talked about terroir, we've talked about brand, we've talked about the whole ecosystem, but talent and people who are key in the whole Bollinger Group and wider than that there's a shortage of talent in lots of industries. How do you think about acquiring and retaining really good people?

Etienne Bizot

Thank you, Simon, for this question, because I think it's a crucial question for the next generation, so for the next 20 or 30 years. I do think that these guys are doing the success of the winery and industry. One of the reasons why we've put in our values entrepreneurship, we have in our values entrepreneurship, it's because we be believe that the young generation needs to be invested in a new project and we need to give them the opportunity for that. And I've got a nice story about that to tell you. Right in the middle of the first confinement in March 2020, the marketing director of the French market together with the boss came to me in my office father, it was at the end of the confinement because I wasn't home. But anyway, they came to my office and said, ‘Why don't we simply produce our own gin?’ And I said, for a different reason, we needed a gin to replace somebody who had just left. And I said, ‘Yeah, great idea. Move on.’ And I said to her, she came back to me and said, I need such a budget. She moved on, she carried on. The gin is launched in September 21 becoming a great success in France. The gin is called an Anaë. It's a French gin, it's a bio gin and I was very keen on the success of it because it helped for her and for many people inside the business to prove that we're open to listen to projects, whatever they have, and whether we can support them or not. And also, it gives a bit of sense to what she's doing and what we're doing in the business. We need to get sense why they're staying in the business when they stay, so entrepreneurship and to give sense to the business. That's amazing. That's a very nice story. I'm very pleased to talk to you about it.

Simon Brewer

So Anaë, it's a bio gin, very popular in France. I've not seen it in the shelves in the UK, but I'm sure it's coming if it's not there already.

Etienne Bizot

It may come, Simon.

Simon Brewer

I'm going to ask you some general questions and I'm going to go straight back to James Bond who famously said about the temperature champagne should be to be drunk. He said, 'Never above 38 degrees Fahrenheit,' which I think is 3.3 degrees centigrade. What's the right temperature for champagne?

Etienne Bizot

For me, it's 12 degrees Celsius. If you serve it too chilled, you kill the aromas. And for me, especially in Bollinger champagne, there are too many aromas that it's a pity not to taste these aromas by serving our wines at 3, 4, or 5 or 6 Celsius. It should be served 12, which is about the temperature that goes out of the cellar, by the way.

Simon Brewer

Fantastic. Your cellars have lovely thick walls so they get the right temperature. But you talked about aromas, which leads me to the type of glasses because we have the flutes and we have the coupe, the bowl. I read that the coupe was fashionable in France from the 18th century to the 1970s and then the flute, the straight, tall glass became more popular to concentrate the aromas. How do you think about glasses and champagne?

Etienne Bizot

You're right. Back in the 18th century, that was the coupe, which is very nice to look at. But the issue with the coupe of champagne is that you lose all aromas. Aromas are flowing out without getting to your nose. That is why maybe I'm going to shock you why I love to taste Bollinger within a wineglass. And there are many kinds of wine glasses. I'm not going to go in detail on that. But at home, I always drink champagne in wine glasses.

Simon Brewer

And when is your favorite time to drink champagne?

Etienne Bizot

I don't know the phrase of Tante Lily, but it's going to be the same. With good friends or with my family, and morning, afternoon or evening and so on.

Simon Brewer

The question I wanted to ask him that's in the context of Bordeaux Index and generally changes in behavior is people who are seeking alternative ways to invest, forestry, land, diamonds, vintage wines, we've seen what's happened with the first growth in Bordeaux. Are you seeing that distinct new wave of buyers who are buying to invest rather than to consume?

Etienne Bizot

I think the young generation are the key target for us, the young generation, to let them understand that when you talk about La Côte aux Enfants, when you about La Grande Année or R.D., they should have a look at this wine as much as they're looking at the Bordeaux grand cru or the Burgundy grand cru. It has a great advantage, by the way, that it's still cheaper than grand cru Bordeaux and grand cru burgundy. So that is a good placement for these guys who a bit wealthy, and there are many and more and more wealthy people around the world and wealthy young people around the world. The next challenge for us is to attract this young generation, which has started already.

Simon Brewer

And if you could give advice, we have a lot of young people who listen to the show ,people who are maybe thinking about or haven't thought about going into the wine industry and there are some great places to study in France and in Davis in California. What advice would you give to young people thinking about the world of wine and champagne as a career?

Etienne Bizot

We will need two hours talk about that, Simon. Thank you for this question. I do think that first of all, there is a lot of opportunity in the wine industry anyway. It could be in the production, it could be in selling, it could be marketing, it could be in support function like HR or whatever. And there is a demand. The wine industry is demanding a lot of people to work within with it. They need first of all to be convinced that they're interested in the wine industry. There are many, many ways to do it, maybe to go through the WSET program to understand what is wine tasting, wines and so on. They need to like entertainment because wine, especially when you sell and when you market wine, they need to like it, the need to go and meet people and to exchange with them, have a good glass of wine with them. They need to understand also how you market and I'm not going to make you lessons now, but how we market wine. So which channel, what kind of position, which markets, which priority, which focus. And when you talk about production, there are many careers possible like vineyard master and so on, maybe small visits of different wineries to be sure that they want to go. And then I think they just have to knock on the door and define themselves. Because we are always looking for people, always looking for people passionate about wine.

Simon Brewer

So my final question to you, Etienne, is that we like to ask our guests in the journey that you've traveled before and at Bollinger, what's the most valuable piece of advice you would offer to listeners?

Etienne Bizot

The big difference between our wine industry and many other industries and that makes it sometimes difficult to understand for people, it's a long term business. The impacts of the decision you take on wine don't see the effects before many years. And that is why it’s always difficult to make decisions. But within the last 30 to 34 years within the industry, I think that the long term vision is crucial to make such a business successful worldwide.

Simon Brewer

Viola. A perfect place to stop. Thank you. I'm going to summarise as I try to do is a couple of the valuable insights that have been imparted. I'm going to take two away from those, apart from 12 degrees Celsius for the optimal temperature of champagne. One is that your business is changing, along with many others because of the ability to talk directly to consumers and it adds an important shift, which is I suspect only going to grow and grow. And secondly is that for those who talk about UK wines and investment, you use the word courageous but one shouldn't forget these are enormous investments in Capex and investment with very uncertain outcomes as well. So we will see and we will be observing and talking, but Etienne, it's been a great pleasure. I was looking forward to this. Whether you're a Bond lover or not, the Bollinger story is a fantastic one. So keep on making history.

Etienne Bizot

We will. Simon, thanks a lot.