The art of Champagne
HOXXOH Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru. The Breath of Time.
There are stories that seem to exist beyond the reach of time, where nature and human vision meet to create something truly eternal. The story of HOXXOH Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru belongs to this rare category.
It begins in Venteuil, a quiet village in the Marne Valley, where the Granzamy family has tended vines for centuries, long before Champagne became the symbol of celebration it is today. Then came two simple inventions that changed everything: the glass bottle and the cork stopper. Together, they captured the magic of a second fermentation, giving birth to bubbles. What was once considered a flaw became a miracle. Champagne was born.
In 1907, the story takes a defining turn. Béatrice Lamiraux’s great-grandfather, whose descendants, Béatrice and her husband Raphaël, now run the estate, purchased the family vineyards and created their first cuvée. For the first time, from soil to bottle, everything was done by their own hands.
That same year, destiny was at work elsewhere. The house of Heidsieck & Monopole bottled its 1907 vintage, later ordered by Tsar Nicholas II for his army headquarters in Saint Petersburg. Three thousand bottles were loaded onto the Swedish ship Jönköping, bound for Russia. On November 3, 1916, the ship was sunk by a German submarine in the icy Baltic Sea.
More than eighty years later, in 1998, a team of Swedish divers discovered the wreck lying sixty-four meters below the surface. Inside, the Champagne was perfectly preserved. Cold, darkness, and pressure had done their work. Laboratory analysis revealed a wine still balanced, aromatic, and surprisingly fresh. One of the bottles sold at auction in Moscow for €224,000, becoming one of the most expensive Champagnes ever sold.
“The year 1907 has always meant something to me,” explains the founder of HOXXOH. “It represents both memory and rebirth.”
Together with oenologist Thomas Porignaux, vintners Raphaël and Béatrice Lamiraux, and his partner Macha, he decided to open one of the legendary bottles. A faint sigh escaped the cork, the final breath of a century-old wine. Its color glowed with deep gold and amber hues. The nose was powerful yet refined, unfolding notes of candied citrus, dried fruits, toasted almonds, and white chocolate.
Despite its rich “American taste” dosage of 55 grams per liter, the wine astonished by its freshness. The conditions of its underwater slumber, seven bars of pressure, four degrees Celsius, total darkness, had created something truly singular.
“It wasn’t just a Champagne,” he recalls. “It was a witness. A messenger from another time.”
From that moment, an idea was born. During the disgorgement of the HOXXOH Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru, crafted from Chardonnay grown in the Grand Cru villages of Oger and Chouilly, all from the 2014 harvest, a small amount of the Jönköping Champagne was added to the expedition liqueur.
A symbolic gesture, a bridge between centuries, where past and present would meet inside a single bottle.The result is a Champagne of exceptional purity and finesse.
Each glass carries a subtle echo of that legendary wine, resurrected from the depths of the Baltic to live again in the light.HOXXOH Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru is not just a wine. It is a shared emotion, a celebration of time itself, luminous, alive, unforgettable.
Shared pleasure. Assured happiness.
Grégoire Popineau
HOXXOH
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