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Above, Dom Pérignon bottles in cellars (©️ James Bort). Dom Pérignon Vintage 2003. Courtesy of Dom Pérignon
Courtesy of Dom Pérignon

story, erases it, and rewrites it. Chaperon’s story started in Congo all the phenomena it can unleash. Chaperon manages to put it into
on January 6, 1976, his date of birth. Coming from a winemaking a bottle, and what comes out of it is a genie, like in the fairy tale.
family from Bordeaux, wine has always been part of his life. Maybe he feels the same when he finds himself face to face with
His studies at the École Nationale d’Agronomie in Montpellier, another, even more uncontrollable, type of nature.
his experiences in the vineyards during the harvests in Pomerol, “I love boating,” he says, “At sea you are always on the razor’s
Saint-Émilion, Sauternes, and in some estates in Chile and edge, just like with Dom Pérignon.”
Argentina, then the decision to stop to explore the Champagne Who knows what he thinks about when he is out in open waters,
region, his chosen land. To create a wine that is more than a wine looking at those giant waves full of foam that sometimes seem on
– it is a symbol by now – the soil alone is not enough. It is also a the brink of overturning you.
matter of sun, rain, vagaries of the weather, and unexpected events. Well, maybe we figured out what he thinks about when he looks
It is a constant challenge. at that liquid mass with all those ‘bubbles.’ Maybe he is imagining a
The sensation you feel when you are dealing with nature, with champagne glass large enough to contain an ocean of vintage.

42 Heritage Protagonist