Taittinger Collection

The image created for the bottle is a great example of Vasarely’s style. It shows his desire to achieve harmonious compositions using constructive solutions by retaining just the geometric shapes needed. The design on the bottle is a perfect example of kinetic art - a movement which originated with Vasarely and which can be seen in his Vega series (world-renowned geometric designs which create an illusion of relief).

The 1978 harvest was significant as it was one of the smallest that the Champagne region had ever experienced in the post-war period. Picking had been preceded by hot and dry conditions late on in the season, which resulted in a high sugar alcohol content in the black grapes and a superb quality of yield.

He studied the work of Kandinsky and Le Corbusier closely and, from 1947 onwards tackled abstract art, developing his own defined style. Co-founder of the ‘Galerie Denis René’, which exhibited leading ‘abstract paintings’, he advocated the gradual and complete rejection of traditional easel painting and conventional techniques. Vasarely died on the 19^th March 1997, aged 89.

The bottle created for the Taittinger Collection in 1985 showcases this style. Golden violins intertwine across a black painted background. The musicians playing them are not totally absent from the design. One can imagine them there, thanks to the Arman’s talent at suggestive placement, which turns the champagne into a most heartfelt tribute to music.

The 1981 harvest was notable for being one of the smallest that the Champagne region had experienced post WWII. Nevertheless, it enjoyed a fine reputation with regards to its quality. After a sunny August and a relatively rainy September, the sugar alcohol level was high in both white and black grapes.

Arman tried to capture reality by using accumulation as the fundamental method for his visual art. This technique demonstrated his desire to showcase new perceptual approaches to the notion of reality against the weakening mainstream of non-objective abstraction, a style popular the 1950s. Whether he multiplied or destroyed the object he was concentrating on, Arman always brought the elements together again, both for his deconstructed and his accumulated pieces. He died in New York on 22 October 2005.

The touch of gold in the middle of the bottle represents the sun streaming rays of sunshine over the magnificent Champagne countryside. Its light brings life, vineyards and red or white wine (depending on the colour of the grapes) to the region. This is symbolised by two figures who sensually reach out towards it; a firework-like explosion of a shell in the night or the moment of grace when the soul lets go of reality. André Masson died in Paris in October 1987, only a few months after making his contribution to the Taittinger Collection.

Both the quality and quantity of the 1982 harvest has long been considered heaven-sent and legendary. After four years of low yields, the vines finally unleashed their potential thanks to the fantastic sunny spells of July and August.

Throughout the 1920s, he was part of the surrealist movement, and this played a central role in his work which also reflects how attitudes have evolved throughout the 20^th century. As a consequence, it was natural for him to become interested in cubism and abstraction. A seeker for a world of freedom and independence, Masson was a visionary of rare clear-sightedness. He continuously travelled the world in search of impassioned and definitive images. However, wisdom taught him that ‘there is no finished world’; Masson’s world of form was in perpetual movement. His works are arresting images, of which the overwhelming beauty both fascinate and frighten at the same time.

The spots of colour which landed on it remain fixed there for ever! However, they don’t just stay there in a static manner, they in fact rise in a stream of bubbles, thanks to da Silva’s conviction in her artwork.

After having celebrated the ‘year of the century’ in 1982, who could have anticipated that it would happen again as early as the year after? The vines enjoyed exceptional weather throughout the season, which resulted in a huge harvest of superb quality.

She set up home very early on in Paris with her husband, the Hungarian painter Szenes, and she successfully enrolled in the famous Paris (ART?) school. She was captivated by a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream and used it as inspiration for her understanding of space as shown in the design of the stage and the depiction of the relationship between reality and make-believe. Vieira da Silva created happy paintings. The rhythm of the lines and colours have an intense musicality and mysterious feel. Imagination is not so much a construction of the mind, but a way of creating it. This paradoxical association runs through all of Vieira da Silva’s work, caught between effusion and restraint, meticulousness and chaos, and darkness and light.

He sought to create a visual shock by using dots and the careful choice of a few dominant colours - Van Gogh yellow, Royal blue and British Racing green. However, he wanted to take things further. By elongating the image to the point of confusion, the facial hair, which appears below his signature and extends right up to the vine shoot, reminds us that champagne is the result of the interwoven effort of nature and human ingenuity.

The 1985 harvest was not large, but the quality was superb. Terrible frosts in January and February had caused irreparable damage in several vineyards. Luckily, the situation improved at the start of the summer. The vines flowered early and superb weather throughout September and October caused the grapes to swell and give bulk to the bunches.

After painting in the style of abstract expressionism up until 1960, Lichtenstein became one of the leading artists of the American Pop Art movement. This was a very graphic style, which drew inspiration from comics and everyday media images. Surfaces were often created using ‘Ben Day dots’. These dots were stencilled to imitate the pixelated effect of printed images. His work reflected ‘popular culture’, showing the way it functioned and its significant moments, including war and social conflict. He focussed on images showing the ‘excessive’ side of life, such as the materialistic commercials of this epoch. He died in Manhattan on 29^th September 1997.

His arabesque-like marks in black and yellow on a light metallic background convey to us that life can be found in provocation. Hand Hartung has used the lines of the bottle itself to perfection with his soaring, ascending lines, highlighted with colour. These lines provoke thoughts of fizz; the moving force of campagne just waiting to burst out.

After the terrible frosts of 1985, vineyards in Champagne demonstrated an amazing ability to regenerate in 1986. The vines flowered in the space of one week and developed into superb bunches with an impressive number of grapes. The wine produced was very balanced with ideal acidity, creating the sophistication, freshness and elegance of this vintage.

He became the master of Lyrical Abstraction. He wished to remain independent of any school, rejecting an offer to study at the Bauhaus in his youth so that he could instead train classically by studying paintings and techniques at the Academy of Fine Art in Leipzig, Dresden and Munich. Hartung’s energy expresses itself through marks made by scraping, large billows, tornadoes, scratches and quivering sprays. The energy is given a shape that reveals itself visually and displays all its power.

He chose the theme of flowers and leaves to reflect this - subjects which are much loved by Japanese painters. The chrysanthemum, a symbol used by the Japanese Imperial family, is the perfect flower for expressing the wine that accompanied the coronation of our Emperors. Each shimmering colour used plays its own magical role. The blood-orange suggests the rising sun. The cobalt blue represents the sacred rock, a place of prayer to the spirits in Shintoism, and the metallic blue provides a reflection of the sun on the mountain tops when dawn becomes day.

The harvest in 1988 took place at the end of September in the context of very good weather conditions. Sunshine in the late season and the relatively cool nights before the harvest started allowed the grapes to attain an excellent balance of sugar content and acidity. The 1988 wines are clear, with an excellent taste and aromatic potential, and a sophistication that improves with age.

In 1962, his native Japan officially recognised the importance of his work. His painting ‘Plein Soleil’ won an award at the 5th Exhibition of Japanese Contemporary Art, and the Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo bought some of his paintings. He died in 2002.

Figures are formed using gestures made in colour on a solid, or modulated, coloured background. Strangely-shaped birds, reminiscent of those found on bas-reliefs in Coptic monasteries or on the totem poles of Indian tribes, are depicted on a background which is painted in a green, similar to the vine leaves themselves. The birds are ready to take flight and break free from cages and barriers as universal messengers of joy - much like the wine contained within the bottle.

After a blistering summer, the harvest in 1990 took place quite early on. The weather conditions allowed the grapes to mature superbly well in the Champagne region. They had an exceptional level of sugar, and the acidity level also remained acceptable. The wine is strong, full-bodied and richly aromatic, whilst also remaining fresh on the palate. This combination results in a vintage, which is full of character and keeps for a long time.

He was a painter, sculptor, printmaker and ceramicist, and was a follower of Dutch culture and the nation’s rich artistic past. Corneille painted birds, synonymous for freedom and spirit, as well as cats, given their hypocrisy no doubt reminded Corneille - an artist who loved all the pleasures in life - of his favourite adversary - women. In 1948, he took part in the highly influential CoBrA artist collective in Paris. This was an instinctive movement which favoured openness to the world through a willingness to commune with all forms of art. He died in Auvers-sur-Oise in 2010.

These are some of the characteristics found on the design he created in his homage to Champagne. Matta leads the design with poppies, a well-known symbol of war remembrance and painted them on an ochre background. These flowers represent a need for nostalgia, yet a spirit of continuation all the same. Calligraphic marks, reminiscent of the famous ‘automatic writing’ of the surrealists, run across the design.

In 1992, the ripening period was affected by the weather, which was to be desired at times. However, thanks to a sunny period at the end of August and the start of September, everything fell nicely into place. The character of the 1992 wines are in line with previous great vintages. The grapes had matured well and had given the wine a full-bodied and aromatic strength. Acidity was at a good level, creating an overall balance and vibrancy. The taste is moreish and long-lasting, with the sophisticated combination of lemon and floral notes.

After graduation, he joined the influential Le Corbusier group. However, Matta turned his attention quite quickly to drawing and painting. From 1939 onwards, he lived in New York where he caught the imagination, together with his friends Masson, Max Ernst and Miro, of a whole generation of young American painters who were attracted by the Abstract Expressionism movement. Even Jackson Pollock, the founder of Action Painting, recognised the influence that Matta had had on him and others within the group of exiled Parisian artists. He died in Italy in 2002.

‘I paint what isn’t seen’ he said. ‘My paintings become unreadable. Still life and flowers no longer exist. I am attracted by marks which are imaginary, indecipherable’. Indecipherable maybe, but not unfathomable to those who allow themselves to be led into his mysterious abysses, sea beds, phantasmagorical grottos and skies, which are both calm and stormy, where the viewer is drawn into a feeling of complete physical freedom and weightlessness.

The harvest in 1998 started in mid-September in the rain. After alternating hot and cold periods, the sun promptly made an appearance and rescued an abundant crop which had wonderfully ripened. The balance between the sugar alcohol and the acid is unprecedented and ranks it among the best harvests in the House’s history. The 1998 wines are blessed with an impressive intensity and harmonious aromas. These qualities, together with an ever-present freshness mean that this vintage keeps very well.

After having studied at the prestigious Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou, he came to France in 1948. Here, he discovered the great Western painters and began creating an impressive synthesis of traditional Chinese art and European art - a melange of his Orient heritage and the West. During the 1950s, he became friends with Picasso, Miro, Giacometti, Vieira da Silva, Hartung and Soulages. He died in Switzerland in 2013.
Zao Wou-Ki, who became a French national in 1964, is perhaps the most moving of the great abstract painters of the 20^th century.

He loved the Baroque, weightless astronauts and the Venuses by Rubens, rockets, parachutes, eagles, transparencies, flashes, reflections and the unknowns. His creation for the Taittinger Collection depicts a centrally-placed cockerel - the bird which announces the dawn - on top of its church tower. It is a design which shares in the celebratory spirit of champagne. Robert Rauschenberg died in 2008, just one year after completing this work.

Just before the harvest was due to take place, quite a lot of the crop was still yet to ripen and the rain was lashing down. Luckily, the sunshine returned and the grapes matured quickly, and by the start of September had reached unexpectedly good levels. The Chardonnays are floral with a full, complex structure. The Pinots Noirs are full-bodied and full of flavour, with a red fruit aroma.

The contemporary art world knew that he, together with Jasper Johns, was the link which connected the abstract expressionism of Pollock and Kooning to the Pop Art of Warhol and Lichtenstein. His art, like some surrealists, was made from discarded items, the old-fashioned and the worn out. His strength lay in the fact that every piece which he collected and assembled was imbued with life to such a degree that he created space (a collage) or time (an assembly).

This cosmos, for the Taittinger Collection, is African. His native continent looks back at us and surrounds us with its salt-of-the-earth rivers, raw life, love and death. The world in its purest, earthy form - huge, strange, profound, violent at times and soft like a baby carried on its mother’s back. In the African night, emotions and movement dissipate in a stream of bubbles towards a star-filled sky. All of this is remarkably reminiscent of champagne.

The year 2002 was characterised by low rainfall and a relatively mild winter. The summer saw a succession of hot, sunny days. After a huge harvest, which unfolded from mid-September to the end of the month, the first tastings revealed a wine which was rounded, smooth, open and mellow. The Chardonnays are long-lasting and rather aromatic with a dominant floral or fruity note, depending on the vintage. The Pinots Noirs are full-bodied, rich and generous, with a red berry aroma.

Sow began his artistic career in the 70s by making sculptures in stone before moving on to using rigid, transparent plexiglas, and finally to ceramics. From 1972, he lived in Vienna where he studied at the prestigious 300-year old Academy of Fine Arts, where he was known simply as ‘The African’. He chose to glorify his ‘blackness’ through his work, in order to fulfil a better choice for his ‘path’ in life, whilst being far from his place of birth. He died in Dakar in 2015.

The magnificently lit black and white images were taken over the course of 32 trips. Salgado chose an image for the Taittinger Collection, which was taken from this compendium. It shows a leopard in the Barab River Valley, Damaraland, Namibia. It depicts something which is universal and fundamental - an animal drinking from a river: life at its most simple and peaceful, and a source of happiness.

Of this, 50 % Chardonnay from the Côte des Blancs region and 50 % Pinot Noir from the Montagne de Reims and from the mouth of the Marne Valley makes up the blend. After a mild, rainy winter and a poor spring, the 2008 harvest took place in beautiful, fresh, dry weather conditions. The crop was good and healthy. The Chardonnays are vibrant and fine, with a beautiful minerality. The Pinots Noirs are fruity and heady, with a vibrant finish. The sustained acidity, which is fully incorporated into the wine, promises an excellent keeping quality.

She was the person who bought him a camera, which he was to go on and use many times on trips to Africa whilst working for the International Coffee Organisation in London. Photography became his passion and he stopped working as an economist and, together with his wife, launched into a career in photography. From 1973 onwards, they explored Africa and Latin America together, before returning to Brazil in 1979. Sebastião Salgado’s prolific body of work illustrates his commitment to and interest in the planet and those who live there - both of men and animals.

“Sebastião Salgado is like a great tree. We see the state of the planet very plainly in his work, and in himself. His photos express in a very positive manner the tragedy and crisis of men and animals living in the hope of running water in the world’s valleys (...) and the necessity of what is important in comparison with the superficial.”