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Sir Winston Churchill had a lifelong
attachment to Pol Roger champagne and insisted on enjoying the
wine at the most dangerous and dark periods of wartime. He
famously borrowed a slogan of Napoleon’s to describe his passion
for this supremely invigorating champagne: "In defeat I need it,
in victory I deserve it".
Winston Churchill was born in 1874, the same
year from which an outstanding Pol Roger vintage was created, a
cuvee which was to provide the foundation for the brand’s
reputation in England.
Winston became a customer of Pol Roger for
the first time when a Cabinet Minister and President of the
Board of Trade. He ordered a supply of the 1895 vintage.
 By 1914 Pol Roger had become the champagne of
people of prominence, and the 1906 vintage sealed this position,
being consumed at many royal functions. Winston Churchill, as
First Lord of the Admiralty, retained his loyalty to the brand.
During the Second World War, Churchill
maintained a stock of Pol Roger always at hand, even having a
case loaded onto flights into foreign war zones, as both defeats
and victories justified its consumption. (Allied troops, after
the liberation of Epérnay and France in 1944 had special stocks
of Pol Roger labelled and reserved for their use).
In 1944, Churchill attended an informal
luncheon held by the British Ambassador in Paris, Duff Cooper
and his wife, where he was introduced to Odette Pol-Roger and a
lifelong friendship developed. Odette was one of the renowned
“Wallace Collection” the three beautiful daughters of French
Major General Wallace. The coming together with Odette was
described as 'a beautiful December May relationship, quite
harmless and smiled on by Mrs Churchill, who much admired Odette
who personified the best in France'. Every year on Winston’s
birthday, November 30th, Odette would send a case of Churchill’s
favourite vintage while stocks lasted the 1928.
Churchill described Odette’s home at 44,
Avenue de Champagne, in Epérnay as the world’s most drinkable
address but sadly was unable to complete his promise to tread
the grapes with his bare feet. Instead he sent her a signed copy
of his memoirs with the inscription Mise en bouteille Chateau
Chartwell. In 1949, he was still attached to the 1928 vintage,
insisting that it be the only champagne served in his lodgings
in Strasbourg for the Council of Europe meeting.
In January 1965 Churchill died. As a tribute
to their most loyal client, through whose cellar it is estimated
more than 500 cases of Pol Roger had passed in the last ten
years of his life, a black border was added to the labels of all
bottles of White Foil sold in the United Kingdom.
 Then in 1984 Pol Roger introduced the Cuve
Sir Winston Churchill, the launch taking place at Blenheim
Palace, his birthplace. In 2006 the Cuve was re-released in a
new livery with lively shades of marine blue and red recalling
the resplendent uniform worn by Sir Winston during his tenure of
the Wardenship of the Cinque Ports.
The champagne reflects the rich, mature,
full-bodied style of Pol Roger champagne made before the Second
World War, the style that Churchill preferred. Christian
Pol-Roger explains: The composition is not disclosed Winston
Churchill never asked about the exact composition of our cuvees
but Pinot Noir dominates, blended with Chardonnay. The grapes
are from Grand Cru vineyards under vine in Churchill’s lifetime.
In 1990 the black band of mourning on White
Foil was lightened to navy blue, recalling Winston Churchill’s
loyalties to the Senior Service as a former First Lord of the
Admiralty. |
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