Elite Traveler Summer 2024

elite traveler SUMMER 2024 121

Left and below Champagne Bollinger’s 179 hectares of vines are made up of 85% Grand and Premier Crus

LOOKING AHEAD James Bond’s favorite bubbly, Bollinger, turns 200 years old in 2029. To make sure it’s around for another century or two, it has ambitious plans. I heard about some of them at a tasting the company staged in a New York townhouse, and they sound like the biggest transformation the maison has champagne style for the future. Aging in barrel is key, explained Bollinger’s resident barrel maker, so a new cathedral-like cellar open to the vines will hold 5,000 of them, and the brand began making barrels from its own forest fi ve years ago. To maintain ancestral methods and expertise, Bollinger needs to train new workers, and plans to open its own School of Savoir-Faire in 2025. New investments in oeno-tourism to lure new drinkers and polish Bollinger’s image include transforming Maison Dueil on the estate to a boutique hotel and renovating Elizabeth Bollinger’s personal home and garden for a shop as well as tasting and reception rooms. Bollinger is all in on the importance of experimentation with the launch four years ago of a new single village-based Pinot Noir bubbly, labeled PN. Each year it’s made with grapes from a di ff erent village. The PN AYC18 brims with energy and dried pear and warm pastry notes. There’s much more, including achieving B Corp certi fi cation status last fall for its strong commitment to social and environmental responsibility. champagne-bollinger.com known since its founding in 1829. One essential: safeguarding its