An Interview with Michel Drappier, the Don Draper of Champagne

If you are going to live, LIVE. This, my fellow bon vivants, is the soul of Champagne.

The pop of the bottle is a rock-opera of great fortune, human resilience, and intelligent recklessness. Champagne is Tom Ford cuff links and YSL lipstick stains. It is refined, yet it is trouble… in other words, the intersection of which I personally exist.

Oh yes, I have sipped Champagne while madly in love and deeply in pain; when winning, and while wounded. Because, what does Champagne taste like? Resplendent vulnerability.

When I visited the stunning Champagne region of France, I met André and Michel Drappier, proprietors of the fine, historically-rich, Drappier Champagne vineyard in Urville. (The ancestral tree of the Drappier Family has its roots in the 17th century, with the birth in 1604 of Rémy Drappier… but that is another story for another time!)

These men are all the things I love about bubbly. Naturally, they are sublime vignerons, and fine experts on the earth and the grape, but more so, they are extraordinarily… alive. The Drappiers are equal parts sophistication and joie de vivre. And, okay, quite easy on the eyes too. “Michel Drappier is the Don Draper of Champagne,” I scribbled in my messy, tipsy notes, like a smitten teen.

I recently had the chance to ask Michel about his experiences as one of the world’s most respected producers — from his words-to-live-by to life in the wild. Here is a taste of Drappier…

[France Today]: What is the most important thing you have learned from your father, André Drappier? Also, what has André learned from you?

[Michel Drappier]: I learned from my father to get up early and work hard. I learned to work with and not against the weather. I learned to work with time: The lifetime of a vineyard is 60 years, lifetime of a bottle of Vintage Champagne is 12 years, a vineyard flower 6 days, and a bubble of Champagne half a second. My father learned from me that he could add my lifetime to his to do more things.

[FT]: What do you like to drink?

[Michel Drappier]: For wine, Burgundy Côte de Nuits. My favourite cocktail is… Champagne with a dash of good mood topped with good company. And my preferred bar is la Coorniche at Pyla-sur-Mer between Arcachon and the Ocean.

[FT]: Where do you go on holiday?

[MD]: Everywhere from Finland to South Africa and British Columbia to New Zealand. I love old European cities but I need the wild to breathe: South Georgia or the Sahara. There is always some Champagne in my luggage.

[FT]: You already invented the world’s largest Champagne bottle (the Melchisedech), what is your goal for the future of Drappier?

[MD]: To make our wines purer and try to seduce the soul of our customers so that my children are proud to bear the name of our brand.

[FT]: What are you favorite restaurants around the world?

[MD]: La Toque Baralbine in Bar-sur-Aube for the quality of the food and the generosity of the chef; Alain Passard l’Arpège in Paris for its vegetables and the Cube built for a few weeks on the top of historical buildings (Brussels, Milan, London…).

[FT]: What is the secret to happiness?

[MD]: Remembering that life is short, that every moment is a gift and that there is a wine for each moment.

[FT]: What is the most ideal food to eat with Champagne? Perhaps something we have not heard of before?

[MD]: Aligator’s tail, a mix of fine chicken and white fish, great!

[FT]: What is the best part about being French?

[MD]: The best: thing is that we have rich history and culture, a great countryside, sea side and mountains; great wines; chauvinism. My blood is French but I feel I am just a guest wherever I am on the planet and I feel home almost everywhere.

[FT]: Do you have a favorite designer?

[MD]: I like Carven and Christian Lacroix but what I like best is a swimming suit or a vineyard leaf!

[FT]: If you could have been anything else in life what would it be?

[MD]: Definitely architect if I had not been a vigneron.

[FT]: What do you like to say when you make a Champagne toast?

MD]: À vos amours !

Alyssa Shelasky is a contributing writer for New York Magazine, Bon Appetit, Cosmo and Fathom.com. She is the online Rome corespondent for Conde Nast Traveler, and the author of Apron Anxiety: My Messy Affairs In and Out of the Kitchen. She splits her time between Rome and Brooklyn. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @apronanxiety.