Bruno Paillard Champagne
FAMILY OWNED AND INDEPENDENT MAISON DE CHAMPAGNE
A champagne bar will be open to exhibitors and visitors throughout the fair, in pavilion 2.
Established in Reims in 1981, Bruno Paillard was born of its founder’s desire to create a very pure champagne, extracted from the inimitable chalky character of the Champagne terroir. Bruno Paillard, an aesthete and an entrepreneur, has shaped a singular taste with patience and exacting standards, sometimes going against the grain of the ideas of his time, in order to bring wine-lovers the promise of flawless quality. Today, his daughter Alice is following in his footsteps, passionately nurturing the spirit of exacting standards that is such a hallmark of the House, whose wines are only available from wine merchants and fine restaurants.
THE VINEYARD, IN THE RESPECT OF THE LIVING
At the roots of the Champagne region, the fruit of Bruno Paillard’s expertise is spread over more than 30 hectares of vines, 17 of which are Grands Crus and Premier Crus. It supplements and diversifies its supplies by buying grapes from winegrowers who have been loyal to the family spirit for over 30 years.
A SUSTAINABLE CULTIVATION PHILOSOPHY
Bruno Paillard has always had a deep respect for nature and different soil profiles, and the vineyard is certified to level 3 of High Environmental Value: no weedkillers, no ploughing, partial grassing of the soil and certified organic soil improvers. The vineyard team takes care of the soil in all its daily activities, encouraging biodiversity and deep root development.
Christian Le Dorze, fondateur du Bonisson Art Center
Art & Bruno Paillard
AN EXEMPLARY COMMITMENT
“If I hadn’t created a Champagne house, I might not have been a great painter, because I’m not sure I have the talent, but I would have liked to be a gallery owner. I chose a different path and when it comes to painting, I’m content to be an amateur who wanders around with his eye and, from time to time, lets himself be moved’.
Bruno Paillard is an art lover with a very personal approach. For example, he remains unmoved by both aggressive and testimonial art, both of which are very popular today.
“If art is simply a puddle in the pond, there are many other ways of being challenged in everyday life, and I’m not interested in that form. In my opinion, art has a dual approach, aesthetic – even if this approach is scorned – and emotional”. Because, in reference to his own culture, he first has to find something beautiful in a work, going against the grain of the dominant discourse on the subject. “I know that’s not the current understanding of the term. But it’s my way of living with it. Because I like to let myself be captured by art”.
Bruno Paillard is convinced that art brings a great deal of happiness. As long as you let yourself be overwhelmed by it. Without preconceptions.
Alice Paillard
Bruno Paillard
ART AND CHAMPAGNE, AN OBVIOUS MARRIAGE
For this man from Champagne, Art and Champagne are an obvious marriage, an indisputable alliance. Why? ‘Champagne is first and foremost a blending wine: the winemaker can marry grape varieties together, as well as vintages and years, and all three together, in a multitude of combinations. Blending is, in itself, an artistic and creative process. There are exceptions to this rule of blending: ‘Blanc de Noirs’ or ‘Blanc de Blancs’ Champagnes made from a single grape variety, or vintage Champagnes made from a single year, whether they are single-vineyard or blends of vintages from a variety of origins and grape varieties. In short, if we consider blending as the thesis of Champagne, these exceptions are its antitheses. The one that interests us here is the third of these Champagne exceptions, the vintage. Because of the nature of the climate, the vintage is different from one year to the next. The winemaker may choose to erase these differences between vintages. On the other hand, he may prefer to emphasise these differences. For my part, I’ve chosen the second option: to emphasise the true characteristics of the year. The synthesis is there, it’s the rule and the exception’. And what an art!
This enthusiast followed his dream to the end when he created his home ex nihilo at the end of the twentieth century, in 1981. ‘It’s an absolutely contemporary house. Of course, I’m not the inventor of the assembly technique. But what is assembly anyway? It’s nothing more than a painter’s palette, on which you use your brush to mix and apply the colours to produce the exact shade you want. So there is a creative phase in our work. For me, the composition of the cuvées and the blends are art! The test tube is in a way the canvas of the artist who is the blender.
For him, Champagne is art in everyday life. Painters also work on a daily basis, ‘so why not create a bridge between the two? Bruno Paillard wanted to personalise his vintages and express their nature on the bottle label. Not just with the regulatory information, considered a little austere, but with a graphic message. A message that can be understood by those in the know, but also subconsciously assimilated by everyone else. When the theme has been chosen after tasting the vintage, Bruno Paillard thinks about the artists who could translate the chosen theme graphically. He may be moved by the work or by the artist, or often by both.
The result is a unique in-house gallery of varied works, whose richness is nourished by its diversity.
In this way, painting by painting, the history of the great years in Champagne is written in this contemporary place imagined by an amateur who feels a sense of solidarity with the artists of his time: an exemplary commitment.
Bruno Paillard
Contact
Avenue de Champagne
51 100 Reims – France info@brunopaillard.com www.champagnebrunopaillard.com