STORY AND PHOTOS BY JUSTIN JIN
Inside the ballroom of Osaka’s opulent Ritz-Carlton Hotel, some 200 Japanese “mama-sans” gather with white makeup and cherry lips. These powerful managers of geisha bars have come to meet 62-year-old Hervé Deschamps, the cellar master of the Perrier-Jouët house and the star of this evening.
Japan, after the USA the largest champagne importer, is still a rich nation with a penchant for Western luxury products. But above all one that appreciates clear, no-frills, consummate refinement, especially at table.
After the welcoming note, the cellarmaster raises his glass. He smells its contents, observes the fine mousse in the light of the chandeliers, takes a small sip. It is a meditation of pleasure. Zen or the art of selling an exceptional drink.
Towards the end of the dinner, Deschamps stands a final time. The cellar master who has made more than 20 visits to Japan has something personal to say.
“It’s time for my retirement,” says Deschamps, pausing a beat to let the mama-sans register this news. Then he announces another surprise: his successor is already here, sitting among them.
Séverine Frerson, his quiet companion, rises to acknowledge her new role. Frerson will be only the eighth cellar master in the venerable house’s two century history and it’s first female head. Murmurs escape the mama-sans’ lips.
Back in Champagne
In his 27 year career leading PJ, Deschamps has personified the grand marque, creating new blends and projecting PJ’s taste and story to the world. He is among Champagne’s most decorated cellar masters.
As he reaches retirement age, Deschamps feels the burden to pass on his know-how to a successor. Frerson, 43, a champenoise, studied oenology at the University of Reims. She ran Piper-Heidsieck and Charles Heidsieck as head winemaker.
For PJ, betting on its first female cellar master signifies monumental change, a revolution that started when, in the 19th century, Madame Bollinger, Madame Pommery and Veuve Cliquot took over and transformed their family businesses.
Their shared journey starts in the cellar, in which 11 million bottles are ageing. As soon as PJ decides on Frerson, Deschamps embarks on a transmission that takes two years.
The World's Oldest Bottles
Opening a creaky iron door, Deschamps shows her the oldest champagne in existence today: two bottles of 1825, verified by the Guinness Book of Records, and soon to be under her care. Among other vintages, there are bottles of 1874 reputed to be the most expensive of the 19th century.
Harvest
At the height of harvest around September, around 100,000 seasonal workers fan out across the region’s chalky vineyards to collect grapes, cutting each bunch by hand to avoid damaging the grape skin and colouring the juice.
Defying logic, the most delicate of white wines are made predominantly of these black grapes, through a process passed down from the legendary 17th century monk Dom Pérignon, a wine-maker in the Hautvillers village near Épernay.
Inside the purpose-built press-houses, the ripe grape aroma fills the air. Stems are left on to help puncture the skin and let the light-coloured juice travel along them, minimising contact with the skin pigment. The same low-pressure pressing method has been followed by muscled men for centuries.
Winter Misery
January takes on an eerie, almost spiritual, rhythm in the world of Champagne, the rainiest, darkest region in France. Winemakers pray for good weather in the year to come in churches with glasses of champagne in hand. with Hardy men rise before the sun to slosh through snow, rain and mud to prune millions of vine pods and boost their productivity.
The Art of Blending
Meanwhile, inside a bright laboratory-like tasting room, Deschamps, Frerson, and the Deputy Cellar Master Eric Trichard hunker down with their tasting team to sample some 250 newly fermented base wines from across the region that year.
Following another skill passed down from the centuries, cellar masters such as Deschamps and Frerson use their highly trained noses to select base wines from a motley patchwork of suppliers within the Champagne region. The aim is to produce a mix that will become, over the years, a greater whole than the sum of its parts.
And since Champagne prides itself on consistency, a 2020 should not deviate far from a 1920. Using different grapes grown under different conditions, the cellar master is responsible for producing the same distinctive taste year after year.
Back in Japan
When Deschamps first joined, his role involved only wine production; today he spends one third of the year travelling on roadshows -- meeting sommeliers, wine journalists, and the mama-sans in Japan -- to help grow sales.
From the monastic dark tunnels leading from Eden, the cellar master must remember where the wine will travel. He and she must think of the glitz of Osaka, Paris and New York where the bubbly will flow deep into the night.
After the mama-san dinner at the Ritz-Carlton, Deschamps, Frerson and two Japanese male colleagues follow some of them to their famously expensive nightclubs.
While these are coveted establishments, once inside the atmosphere is subdued rather than bling. Men in sharp suits and trendy outfits arrive alone or with friends to relax on cosy lounge seats, each served by a hostess. An hour of patronage could cost EUR1,000 per person depending on the drinks and who sits with the visitors.
At the end of the evening, the mama-san bows deeply to the cellarmasters. They return the gesture. Whether she has the respect of the head geishas remains to be seen. It cannot be seen from their faces. But later from the sales figures.
Copyright 2020 by Justin Jin. Contact Justin for the full 3000-word story.
Justin Jin photographs and writes long form stories for the world’s leading publications.
International prizes attest to his dedication. He was awarded the Magnum Photography Grant, a place at the World Press Photo Masterclass, Canon Prize, among others.
He is also a knowledgeable wine-taster, having been in his younger years the prize-winning captain of the Cambridge University blind tasting team.