Credits: Article and images by Ken Gargett @ Quill & Pad. See the original article here - https://quillandpad.com/2023/07/20/pol-roger-sir-winston-churchill-2015-champagne-my-tastes-are-simple-i-am-easily-satisfied-with-the-best/
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There are records confirming that Churchill, who was very much a vintage, rather than non-vintage, champagne lover, was drinking Pol Roger as far back as 1908 – records confirm him ordering several cases of the 1895 vintage in 1908 (the same year as he became engaged to Clementine). Personally, I find it hard to believe that he was not enjoying their champagnes well before that, especially given that by then, he was 34. The order was a dozen standard bottles and a dozen half bottles of the 1895. The cost for this was £4/16.
So enamored with the house of Pol Roger was Churchill that he named his horse after it – and in an act of what was surely divine intervention, Pol Roger won its first race on the very day of Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation, at Kempton Park in 1953 (Churchill had insisted that the champagne served at the Coronation be Pol Roger 1926, the year of Elizabeth II’s birth).
There were even rumors that at some stage, he proposed to Odette Pol Roger (given that both were married well before they met, supposedly in 1944 or 1945 depending on which source you believe, that was possibly an early example of fake news). They were, however, great friends for their entire lives. Every time Churchill’s horse raced, he made sure he put placed a wager on it in the name of Odette.
Odette was well known as a fly fishing aficionado, something that she shared with Christian de Billy (who was always as happy to chat about fly fishing as he was champagne). Christian de Billy, who also passed away just last year, was Christian Pol Roger’s cousin and his co-director. He is also the man many credit with creating the first Pol Sir Winston. Christian de Billy was born in 1928, that great vintage and favorite of Winston’s, in the very room that is now Pol Roger’s head office. 1874, Churchill’s birth year, was another outstanding vintage.
Churchill was also famous for describing the Pol Roger cellars at 44 Avenue de Champagne, Epernay, “the most drinkable address in the world,” although he never managed to visit. As an apology for this oversight, breaking his promise to Odette, he sent her a copy of his memoirs, which he inscribed ‘Cuvée de Réserve, mise en bouteille au Château de Chartwell’. Some years ago, the street running behind Pol Roger’s headquarters in Epernay was renamed Rue Winston Churchill in his honor. This came after a long campaign by former Pol Roger CEO Patrice Noyelle and Pol Roger family member, Christian de Billy.
It was apparently Odette who always made certain that Winston had sufficient supplies of his favorite Pol champagnes, sending him a case every year on his birthday (apparently, he also received a delivery of caviar every year for his birthday from Joseph Stalin, until relations soured over his Iron Curtain speech in 1946). His favorite vintage of Pol was the legendary 1928 (I’ve only ever tried one champagne from 1928, the near-mythical Krug, and it was certainly a fine representative of the year).
When Churchill passed in 1965, he was still drinking his supplies of 1934 – he also enjoyed 1935, 1945 and 1947. The ‘Duff Cooper Diaries: 1915-1951’, record Churchill in Paris having lunched with the Pol Rogers and purchasing four dozen of the 1928 vintage, at 82 francs per bottles, which Cooper believed was ‘extraordinarily cheap’. Alfred Duff Cooper was better known as Viscount Norwich, a former First Lord of the Admiralty, and Britain’s Ambassador to France from 1944 to 1948. It was he who introduced Churchill to Odette.
Pol Roger Sir Winston Churchill 2015 champagne
At the time of Churchill’s passing, the house placed a black border around the edge of the labels on their bottles in honor of the great man. This was done at the behest of Odette. Many years later, when the great storm of 1987 caused so much devastation in England, including destroying the ancient trees at Chartwell, the Pol-Roger family paid for much of the replanting.
Pol Roger was one of the last of the great houses to release a prestige cuvee, doing so as recently as 1984 (as I have suggested before, this is one house where the standard vintage release can almost always sit comfortably with the prestige cuvees released by most other houses). There was surely no debate when it came to naming the wine – Cuvee Sir Winston Churchill.
Pol Roger champagne cellar
While all houses strive to ensure that their prestige cuvee (all their wines, of course) is the absolute best they can produce from each vintage, Pol has an added burden. Not only must it be the best they can make, but they could never release a wine that they believed did not honour Churchill himself. Indeed, a member of the family will always taste the wine before release to ensure that they are happy with it. This job first fell to Mary Soames, Churchill’s youngest daughter, who was present when Sir Winston and Odette first met. Mary approved every release until her death in 2014.
Technically, the house did have a prestige cuvee before this one, their P.R. Reserve Speciale, which focused much more on Chardonnay. It was a superb wine, first released from the 1971 vintage but discontinued with the 1988.
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Credits: Article and images by Ken Gargett @ Quill & Pad. See the original article here - https://quillandpad.com/2023/07/20/pol-roger-sir-winston-churchill-2015-champagne-my-tastes-are-simple-i-am-easily-satisfied-with-the-best/
