January 16, 2025 (Aÿ, France) — This January marks the beginning of the Jubilee celebrations, commemorating 400 years (1625 – 2025) of the Giraud family’s history in Champagne. Let’s look back on an extraordinary history and savoir-faire that have made it one of the most prestigious Champagne Houses.
Champagne Henri Giraud’s origins date back to 1625. Contemporaries of Henri IV and his descendants, the Hémart family settled in Aÿ for good at the beginning of the 17th century. They put down roots in Aÿ and were intimately involved in the epic saga of champagne from the 18th century onwards. In the early 20th century, Léon Giraud, who fought in the Battle of the Marne, married into the Hémart family. He rebuilt their magnificent vineyard after it was devastated by phylloxera. Today it is a woman, Emmanuelle Giraud,13th generation of the Giraud-Hémart family, that holds the reins of this champagne house, member of the Union des Maisons de Champagne and whose iconic vintage cuvée bears the name Argonne* in homage to the famous forest nearby. Her father Claude Giraud, building upon the three pillars of the house (Aÿ Grand Cru, Pinot Noir grapes and Argonne barrels), picked up the threads of history and in 1990 recommenced the tradition of having barrels made from oak from this historic forest**, some 60 km east of Reims, that had produced the celebrated champagne barrels for more than 10 centuries.
Here we speak of great wines first, and champagne second. Here the rare magic of the perpetual reserve is given expression. At Domaine Henri Giraud the Perpetual Reserve, undoubtedly the oldest in Champagne, has been the family’s most carefully preserved heirloom for many generations. “The Perpetual Reserves represent the concentrated extract that we find in all Henri Giraud champagnes. It is both a secret and a legacy, but it is also a concentrate of the history of the House and our unrivaled style. To each generation falls the responsibility to use the reserves with precision to bring out the best in each cuvée” says Emmanuelle Giraud. Most of all, it has become a reference since it embodies all the values that HG hold most dear. It symbolizes well-being, energy, and the source of rejuvenation. It is an intense creation that ages slowly underground, at a constant temperature of 10.5°C in a perfect spot which meets strict zero carbon and zero energy criteria.
If Henri Giraud champagnes are so different, it is because they have kept the memory of the time when the great champagne families built Champagne’s history through the genius of its people and its wines. There is no need for tables and charts to create a bottle of Champagne Henri Giraud. Instinct, knowledge and taste cannot be measured. It is men and women who work the magic. Only the perfection of the grape and its communion with the winemaker speak. It is all about resonance: the soil, the juice, and that of taste and pleasure. The Henri Giraud style is one of the natural modernity of Champagne… of curiosity, tenacity, of the genius of the men and women who, since the 17th century, have overcome fair and foul weather to make a great white wine from a black grape.
Here Sébastien Le Golvet***, master of the Cellar and of Time, gives amazing energy to a fine white wine and opens up a whole new dimension: a suspended space-time in which complexity, fruit and spirituality come together. He channels this fantastic energy, born of the fusion of Champagne’s hundred-million-year-old twin marine terroirs – Aÿ’s chalk and Argonne’s gaize – into a long, saline river, perfumed with subtle aromas. Emotion, carried to its height, borders on the mystic. “We are not artisans. We draw inspiration from ancestral methods to progress to the next stage, that of artistic creation,” he likes to say.
Zero Pesticide, Zero Insecticide, Zero Herbicide: Henri Giraud’s Coteaux Champenois ‘Triple Zero’ is the House’s ultimate vision. “Today’s young people want brands with integrity and craftsmanship, and are concerned about health and well-being as a lifestyle,” says Claude Giraud, representing the 12th generation of the family. In 2018, Henri Giraud became the first Champagne House and the first estate in the world to promise total transparency by offering customers access to a full analysis of its wines – carried out by an independent laboratory – via a QR Code on the back label. “It’s a life choice; one that has demanded and continues to demand major investment – both financial and human – because our family has had to progress step by step towards what it considers to be excellence in wine, over many a long decade,” adds Claude Giraud. The ESPRIT NATURE cuvée (nicknamed “Esprit Sain” by aficionados after the French translation of “a healthy mind in a healthy body”) represents the quintessence of this approach as incarnated in the House’s historic motto: “Preclude nothing, be bound by nothing, make good wine naturally.”
Like the light which pierces through the trees of the Forest of Argonne, and just as spiritual and intriguing, a divine light illuminates Henri Giraud bottles. While the sun and the moon provide the world with natural light, Henri Giraud champagne reveals the uncreated light of another world and nothing here on earth can explain its origin. By its brilliance we measure the energy, the intensity and the power of its cuvées. The light pursues its path, it falls from the sky like a spotlight with a brightness so intense that everything around it appears to be in the shadows. And so the light has become symbolic: it represents the link between the heavens and mankind.
But for HG fans the world over, the Henri Giraud Experience goes far beyond its champagnes; it is a true art of living based on a Healthy Mind. “I really wanted to create a kind of space where you just forget about your life for hours, and go into this place that has a code, or a perspective that you don’t have on a daily basis. It just allows you to just escape for a while, and let your imagination go according to what you see,” explains Emmanuelle Giraud. “So we created the Manoir Henri Giraud.” Adjacent to the Champagne House, in the heart of Aÿ, this former manor house is a place outside of time with just a few rooms, where guests can enjoy a unique experience of well-being and calm. Both a hotel and a spa, it has been designed to prolong the feeling of serenity generated by the Forest of Argonne through a “shinrin-yoku” ritual offered to guests. “Forest bathing”, a very popular medicinal practice in Japan, is an invitation to get closer to nature and its harmony in order to reconnect with our innate ability to heal. Making a connection with trees and plants and embracing nature through our senses is an essential art in the Henri Giraud Experience which continues in this amazing space. The manor’s cellar has been converted to house two stunning treatment rooms where guests can enjoy clay or chalk baths, heated tables or grapeseed oil massages. Here we perform Craÿothérapie: a bath and a wrap in chalk from the Champagne terroir, known for its thousand-year-old micro-organisms with restorative, softening, and soothing properties.
The HG workshops are never short of new ideas, and the Giraud family intends to keep them running at full steam. Some of these are plans for cosmetics based on Craÿothérapie and associated treatments. Others include the consolidation of scientific studies on DNA tracking, ionic soil mapping and the influence of the climate. Calm and well-being are at the heart of each of these projects. Whether it is work carried out in its vineyards in the heart of the champagne grand cru of Aÿ, its revolutionary “0% stainless steel” winery, or a reception area designed to soothe the soul, “It’s all about our commitment to a long-term legacy, decision-making, our signature taste, our genuine rarity and our creative collaborations,” as Emmanuelle Giraud likes to remind us.
*The innovative packaging of Champagne ARGONNE 2008: Designing the most environmentally friendly packaging in the world… Talented architect Shigeru Ban, winner of the 2014 Pritzker Prize (the most prestigious award in architecture), has worked with cardboard tubes for more than 20 years. This hollow material, used in textile factories and to mould cement, is found the world over and costs virtually nothing. Personally involved in the construction of disaster relief shelters, he also uses these tubes in his designs for major international projects. A long-time friend of Domaine Henri Giraud, he brought a fresh visual approach to the ARGONNE 2008 cuvée. He believes that “a great wine can be recognised by the purity of its exterior”, and so he did the unthinkable…he encased one of the world’s finest champagnes in modest cardboard tubes, criss-crossed to give the bottle total support. The result is a truly poetic work of art.
**Few among us are aware that mighty oaks cannot live and multiply without human intervention and care. It takes 180 years to grow an oak. In a world in which time is speeding up and taking us over, planting an oak is anything but insignificant. We can all do our bit to ensure the survival of a forest near us. This was the sentiment behind the Henri Giraud project launched in 2013 to protect the local Argonne forest through its “Forever and Ever Argonne” campaign, in partnership with the French National Forestry Office (ONF). Each time a bottle of the ARGONNE cuvée is purchased, it finances the planting of a new 2-year-old oak tree and its maintenance over the following five years. Safeguarding the Forest of Argonne and protecting Champagne’s heritage is now well under way with more than 70,000 new oaks planted already.
***Each year, a month before harvest, Cellar Master Sébastien Le Golvet undertakes a stringent evaluation of grape maturities. When he begins to get a good feel for the profile of the vintage, he orders his wood accordingly and undertakes the toasting himself, with the coopers. Each barrel is adjusted to a specific juice depending on its provenance and its toast, and in it this champagne wine will patiently develop its aromatic profile: intense, full and structured. That is the #EnergyInside stamp of Henri Giraud: great wines first and foremost, whose soft effervescence underpins the raw material and leads you gently towards the revelation of an incredible energy.
