74
FORBES ASIA FEBRUARY 20 20odolphe Frerejean Ta-
ittinger’s connection to
champagne goes well
beyond his famous last
name. He was baptized
with champagne as a baby, and tasted
his first spoonful of it at age 8. As a
child he and his brothers rode bicycles
past the vineyards of France’s Cham-
pagne region.
The Taittinger family has contin-
ued a tradition of making champagne
that stretches back to 1932, when the
family acquired vineyards that date
to 1734, and today the family’s epony-
mous champagne is among the world’s
ten largest producers by volume.
Rodolphe, 33, and his two brothers,
Richard, 39, and Guillaume, 41, de-
cided to take a different path, splitting
from their cousins to launch their own
champagne house, or maison. In 2005,
the three French citizens launched
Frerejean Frères champagne (frères
means brothers in French).
Today, the company produces rough-
ly 100,000 bottles a year in about six
styles, or cuvées (the exact number
varies as some are limited produc-
tions that sell out). “He’s very humble
yet ambitious,” says Marianna Fossick,
founder of Gain Brands International
of Singapore, a spirits distributor, who
has worked with Frerejean Frères.
Frerejean Frères is a leading exam-
ple of a quiet revolution under way in
the champagne industry. The industry
is dominated by French luxury giant
LVMH, which owns three of the top
ten producers: Dom Perignon, Möet &
Chandon and Veuve Clicquot, produc-
ing together over 60 million bottles a
year. Some other large producers also
count their productions in the millions
of bottles. Frerejean Taittinger, on the
other hand, aspires to produce no more
than 300,000 bottles—sometime be-
fore 2025. “We are artisan champagne
makers,” he declares in an interview in
a recent trip to Singapore. “We are in a
quest for quality and for a champagne
with character.”
Just as the beer industry’s big brew-
ers saw craft beers shake up their in-
dustry, so now are new artisanal pro-R
Forbes Life
ARTISANAL
BUBBLY
RODOLPHE FREREJEAN TAITTINGER is bringing
a new approach to making champagne.By Justin Doebele