Ruinart

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CEO

Frédéric Dufour

Creation date

1729

Headquarters

4, rue des Crayères, 51100 Reims - France

IdentityRUINART

The House of Ruinart was founded on September 1, 1729 by Nicolas Ruinart. His uncle, a learned Benedictine monk called Dom Thierry Ruinart had incredible insight. He foretold that this new “wine with bubbles”, developed in his native region of Champagne and which the royal courts of Europe adored, was destined for a bright future.The creation of the House of Ruinart coincided with the dawn of the Enlightenment in France and of the French “art de vivre”. There arose in France a true culture of everything good and beautiful, favoring fine and elegant, light and sophisticated, delicate and rare taste. The cuvées naturally found their place.Driven by a constant quest for excellence and the absolute, the House selected chardonnay, a rare and fragile grape variety, as the common thread for all its cuvées.

The coat of arms of the Ruinart de Brimont family, ennobled during the reign of Louis XVI © Ruinart

The House of Ruinart laid the first foundation stone of the history of champagne. Elegance, refinement, purity, light and its emblematic grape variety of chardonnay form its DNA and make it a true timeless and modern icon. It draws the power of its creations from three centuries of history. The balance between its origins and its bold promises is the key to its success and makes it a House that is perpetually contemporary.

Frédéric Dufour

President & CEO of the House of Ruinart

2029
RUINART’S300TH ANNIVERSARY
8
KM OF CHALK MINES 38 METERS BELOW GROUND
2020
PACKAGING SECOND SKIN

Ruinart reaffirmed its commitment to the environment in 2020 with the introduction of a new eco-responsible, fully recyclable “Second Skin” packaging © Ruinart

On September 1, 1729, Nicolas Ruinart started his first ledger dedicated to “wine with bubbles”, effectively giving rise to the first champagne house ever created. © Ruinart

Each Ruinart cuvée bears the distinctive signature of chardonnay, the House's emblematic grape variety. © Ruinart

ICON

Ruinart's Blanc de Blancs is the perfect expression of Ruinart style. Made using only chardonnay grapes, it is a blend of its best base wines, giving it aromatic richness, freshness and an exceptional purity. Timeless quintessence of the Ruinart taste, this cuvée is the greatest expression of such rare refinement.

ARCHITECTURE

The House of Ruinart’s chalk mines are like underground cathedrals of chalk that were first exploited during the Gallo-Roman period. These grandiose cellars were classified as a historical monument in 1931. They were dug by hand – the deepest measuring 38 meters in height beneath the vault – and their numerous tunnels criss-cross over a length of more than eight kilometers. Luminous white, these chalk mines spread over three levels offer a total absence of vibrations and a constant temperature and hygrometry: the ideal conditions for the fermentation and maturation of Ruinart cuvées. Over time, they have been the historic and privileged witnesses of the House’s greatest moments.

A major site in Champagne due to their majesty, grandeur and scale, the chalk mines are spread over 8 km and 3 levels © Ruinart

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Since its founding in 1729, the world’s first champagne house has crafted its exceptional wines by nurturing the roots of the terroir and ancestral savoir-faire. As Ruinart prepares for its fourth century, the Maison is deepening its commitment to preserving the soils that are a source of life, and to passing on time-honored savoir-faire and culture.Sustainable development is not only imperative, for Maison Ruinart it is a source of innovation and creative inspiration.Ruinart has taken sustainable packaging to a new level with a pioneering eco-design for 100% paper packaging that is fully recyclable and molded to fit the emblematic curves of the bottle.

OUR EXCEPTIONAL TALENTS

I’m a Riddler-Cellar Worker at Maison Ruinart. My job is to move the champagne bottles after fermentation to gently push the sediment to the neck of the bottle so it can be removed from the bottle, or disgorged. This is actually more complicated than it sounds, because although most of the sediment goes down when you turn the bottle, some of it, the “light sediment” remains stuck to the sides. So what I do is turn the bottles to release this “light sediment” and eject it. To do this I have to “read” the champagne by candlelight, inspecting the bottles closely to determine where the sediment is and how they need to be rotated. This bottle turning, known as “riddling”, is mainly done by hand, but can also be automated. I test all the cuvées and different types of bottles to program the riddling to be done by machine.

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Ruinart is part of Moët Hennessy

Moët Hennessy is the Wines & Spirits division of LVMH, owning renowned wine estates through "LVMH Vins d'Exceptions". With its twenty seven internationally renowned Maisons for the richness of their terroirs, the quality of their products and the craftsmanship savoir-faire with which they are created, Moët Hennessy has been committed, for many years, to its environmental and social program, Living Soils Living Together.Drink responsibly.