The Eiffel Tower and the snowglobe weren’t the only great legacies of the Paris World’s Fairs, though one of the longest-lasting icons spawned there resembles both. Louis Roederer’s Cristal champagne was the result of a meal hosted by Russian Czar Alexander II at the fair’s 1867 edition.
More than a century later, the wine’s history would bubble over into a controversy involving one of America’s richest MCs — a tale that began with some serious bling and ended with a boycott.
Cristal is arguably the most desirable bottle of champagne in the world, a pure status symbol. It’s what economists call a Veblen good — something like a Rolls-Royce or a Hermès Birkin bag, whose desirability increases with its price. That kind of exclusivity was exactly what Alexander II had in mind.
The Russian court was a longtime customer of Roederer and Russia regularly bought a fifth of its 2.5 million-bottle annual production of champagne. But a few years after drinking a non-export bottle at the Café Anglais in Paris in 1867 (the Russian version of Roederer’s champagne was made with a higher percentage of sugar than the French), Alexander returned to the Russian motherland, decided he wanted his very own vintage and sent his cellar master to Roederer’s headquarters in Reims to make it happen. The resulting wine would be Cristal.
After carefully selecting the best parcels of land to produce the grapes devoted to the new sparkler, the cellar master and the winemakers mulled bottle options, with part of the idea being that the vessel would be a tool that the drinkers would use to set themselves apart. To make it even more exclusive, the wine would only be made in good years; a subpar summer or a wet fall simply meant there would be no vintage that year.
The bottle would be clear so that even when dunked in a bucket of ice with a towel around its neck, it would be easily identifiable, as all the competition used dark-colored glass (and, for the most part, still do). While the punts (divots) in the bottom of champagne bottles were particularly pronounced at the time, Cristal’s bottle used extra-thick glass, allowing a flat bottom that could still withstand the 6 atmospheres of pressure involved in the carbonation process (and foiling would-be czar assassins by depriving them of a place to hide a bomb).
Historians disagree about the specifics of this process. Some say Roederer designed the bottle; some say it was made to the czar’s personal specs. Even now, within Roederer, some say Cristal was made for Alexander’s private collection, while others say it was for his entire court. No matter, the end product was liquid gold.
The perks of distinction, quality, ridiculous prices, snobbery and incredible exclusivity ended for the Russians with the revolution in 1917, but Roederer introduced Europe to Cristal in 1928, keeping the Russian imperial coat of arms on the label along with the phrase, “Le Cristal symbolize l’élégance et raffinement des tsars de Saint Petersbourg,” (meaning “Cristal symbolizes the elegance and refinement of St. Petersburg’s czars”) and all the attendant cachet. Cristal didn’t come to U.S. shores for another three decades, making it all the more desirable for its inaccessibility. Its star was born the moment it arrived.
And other stars, irresistibly drawn to the flames of that Veblen good, simply fanned the fire. In the ’60s and ’70s, tennis stars like Jimmy Connors and Vitas Gerulaitis, along with Studio 54 types, lent their approval. Later, the wine went West and Hollywood got on board, with everyone from Jack Nicholson to Robin Leach and his gazillionaires on “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” becoming self-anointed spokesmen for the brand. Ivana Trump enjoyed it so much (it’s said she had a glass a day) that she visited Roederer’s headquarters in Reims; the company’s flunkies picked her up in the company Rolls.
Later still, Cristal would show up in films like “American Gangster” and “Lost in Translation.” With such powerful public endorsements, La Maison Roederer barely had to spend a franc on advertising.
Just to tickle its devotees or turn something already ridiculously rare into something even scarcer, Roederer put out a rosé version of Cristal in 1974. Is it better? Hard to say. Is it even harder to get? Of course. The fetishists snapped it up like hotcakes.
Right around that time, Roederer was switching from local distribution in the United States — hitting big cities and working through word of mouth — to a national effort, telling a larger audience about it and in doing so, making the wine more difficult to obtain.
It would become so exclusive, in fact, that it began leaking into new and unexpected channels, particularly into the hands, clubs, songs and videos of hip-hop artist Jay-Z, giving the carefully cultivated brand a sales boost in a market where it had little knowledge or control. The singer flaunted the luxe-life image the brand portrayed. This was bling in a bottle. The barely nascent, microscopic marketing team at Roederer was baffled.
In a 2006 interview in The Economist, Roederer managing director Frederic Rouzaud was asked whether he thought the attention from the singer’s “bling lifestyle” could be detrimental. “That’s a good question, but what can we do?” he responded. “We can’t forbid people from buying it. I’m sure Dom Perignon or Krug would be delighted to have their business.”
Jay-Z interpreted Rouzaud’s statement as racist (some say he misinterpreted it, as it was The Economist’s journalist, not Rouzaud, who referred to the singer’s attention as “unwanted”) and called for a boycott, pulling it from his club shelves, where bottles sold for upward of $450 and stripping it from his lyrics. Things got ugly fast — or, as Roederer’s then-deputy managing director, Michel Janneau, put it, “It blew up in our faces.” Roederer sent out a communiqué stating its position, battened down the hatches and rode out the storm.
The wine’s worldwide market has only grown since then. This year, the world’s lucky few — minus a rapper or two — will be toasting each other with flutes of champagne poured from a heavy, crystal-clear bottle.
Joe Ray is a food and travel writer and photographer based in New York City.
More than a century later, the wine’s history would bubble over into a controversy involving one of America’s richest MCs — a tale that began with some serious bling and ended with a boycott.
Cristal is arguably the most desirable bottle of champagne in the world, a pure status symbol. It’s what economists call a Veblen good — something like a Rolls-Royce or a Hermès Birkin bag, whose desirability increases with its price. That kind of exclusivity was exactly what Alexander II had in mind.
The Russian court was a longtime customer of Roederer and Russia regularly bought a fifth of its 2.5 million-bottle annual production of champagne. But a few years after drinking a non-export bottle at the Café Anglais in Paris in 1867 (the Russian version of Roederer’s champagne was made with a higher percentage of sugar than the French), Alexander returned to the Russian motherland, decided he wanted his very own vintage and sent his cellar master to Roederer’s headquarters in Reims to make it happen. The resulting wine would be Cristal.
After carefully selecting the best parcels of land to produce the grapes devoted to the new sparkler, the cellar master and the winemakers mulled bottle options, with part of the idea being that the vessel would be a tool that the drinkers would use to set themselves apart. To make it even more exclusive, the wine would only be made in good years; a subpar summer or a wet fall simply meant there would be no vintage that year.
The bottle would be clear so that even when dunked in a bucket of ice with a towel around its neck, it would be easily identifiable, as all the competition used dark-colored glass (and, for the most part, still do). While the punts (divots) in the bottom of champagne bottles were particularly pronounced at the time, Cristal’s bottle used extra-thick glass, allowing a flat bottom that could still withstand the 6 atmospheres of pressure involved in the carbonation process (and foiling would-be czar assassins by depriving them of a place to hide a bomb).
Historians disagree about the specifics of this process. Some say Roederer designed the bottle; some say it was made to the czar’s personal specs. Even now, within Roederer, some say Cristal was made for Alexander’s private collection, while others say it was for his entire court. No matter, the end product was liquid gold.
The perks of distinction, quality, ridiculous prices, snobbery and incredible exclusivity ended for the Russians with the revolution in 1917, but Roederer introduced Europe to Cristal in 1928, keeping the Russian imperial coat of arms on the label along with the phrase, “Le Cristal symbolize l’élégance et raffinement des tsars de Saint Petersbourg,” (meaning “Cristal symbolizes the elegance and refinement of St. Petersburg’s czars”) and all the attendant cachet. Cristal didn’t come to U.S. shores for another three decades, making it all the more desirable for its inaccessibility. Its star was born the moment it arrived.
And other stars, irresistibly drawn to the flames of that Veblen good, simply fanned the fire. In the ’60s and ’70s, tennis stars like Jimmy Connors and Vitas Gerulaitis, along with Studio 54 types, lent their approval. Later, the wine went West and Hollywood got on board, with everyone from Jack Nicholson to Robin Leach and his gazillionaires on “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” becoming self-anointed spokesmen for the brand. Ivana Trump enjoyed it so much (it’s said she had a glass a day) that she visited Roederer’s headquarters in Reims; the company’s flunkies picked her up in the company Rolls.
Later still, Cristal would show up in films like “American Gangster” and “Lost in Translation.” With such powerful public endorsements, La Maison Roederer barely had to spend a franc on advertising.
Just to tickle its devotees or turn something already ridiculously rare into something even scarcer, Roederer put out a rosé version of Cristal in 1974. Is it better? Hard to say. Is it even harder to get? Of course. The fetishists snapped it up like hotcakes.
Right around that time, Roederer was switching from local distribution in the United States — hitting big cities and working through word of mouth — to a national effort, telling a larger audience about it and in doing so, making the wine more difficult to obtain.
It would become so exclusive, in fact, that it began leaking into new and unexpected channels, particularly into the hands, clubs, songs and videos of hip-hop artist Jay-Z, giving the carefully cultivated brand a sales boost in a market where it had little knowledge or control. The singer flaunted the luxe-life image the brand portrayed. This was bling in a bottle. The barely nascent, microscopic marketing team at Roederer was baffled.
In a 2006 interview in The Economist, Roederer managing director Frederic Rouzaud was asked whether he thought the attention from the singer’s “bling lifestyle” could be detrimental. “That’s a good question, but what can we do?” he responded. “We can’t forbid people from buying it. I’m sure Dom Perignon or Krug would be delighted to have their business.”
Jay-Z interpreted Rouzaud’s statement as racist (some say he misinterpreted it, as it was The Economist’s journalist, not Rouzaud, who referred to the singer’s attention as “unwanted”) and called for a boycott, pulling it from his club shelves, where bottles sold for upward of $450 and stripping it from his lyrics. Things got ugly fast — or, as Roederer’s then-deputy managing director, Michel Janneau, put it, “It blew up in our faces.” Roederer sent out a communiqué stating its position, battened down the hatches and rode out the storm.
The wine’s worldwide market has only grown since then. This year, the world’s lucky few — minus a rapper or two — will be toasting each other with flutes of champagne poured from a heavy, crystal-clear bottle.
Joe Ray is a food and travel writer and photographer based in New York City.
PHOTO: INFevents.com
Robin Leach, in Kiss boots for a Las Vegas publicity event this year, hoists a glass of Cristal.
