As space-age lasers dance across Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto’s latest futuristic creation under Reims’ night sky, one might question if they had accidentally taken a wrong turn in search of Maison Ruinart, the oldest champagne house in the world.
Like all the best tales from the French oenoverse, Maison Ruinart’s begins with a learned monk. The story goes that in 1680, at the age of 23, bright-eyed Dom Thierry Ruinart left his birthplace of Champagne for Paris and the scholarly Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. On his return, he told of the French court’s penchant for “wine with bubbles,” not yet known as champagne. It would, however, be the Benedictine monk’s entrepreneurial nephew, Nicolas, who would decades later take his uncle’s foresight and open Maison Ruinart in 1729 — the world’s first commercial champagne house.
It is an unusually crisp early October evening, and a select group of global press members have gathered at the maison’s emblematic 4 Rue Des Crayères address. As the lights illuminate, some 130 ft beneath our feet are Ruinart’s Unesco-certified crayères. The former medieval chalk quarries were transformed into the maison’s iconic cellars by the Ruinart family in the 19th century. A dark labyrinth stretching five miles, it acts as the perfect natural refrigerator for aging cuvées — an early display of the maison’s innovativeness.
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Today, however, as you may have guessed, is not about celebrating past feats. We are here to witness what Maison Ruinart president Frédéric Dufour describes as a “reinvention of the Ruinart universe” — the unveiling of Fujimoto’s Nicolas Ruinart Pavilion. Three years in the making, the new heart of the 7.2-acre estate is a sweeping structure of glass and stone encapsulating a multifaceted space to welcome visitors. The flowing interior of the pavilion, crafted by French designer Gwenaël Nicolas, blends organically like a landscape from retail space to visitor center to bar to tasting rooms.
It takes its place among a trio of existing 19th-century buildings still used for production, each opening onto the maison’s rectangular courtyard garden. As part of the evolution, the garden has seen its own reinvention under the craftsmanship of French landscape artist Christophe Gautrand. Now a modern art gallery free to the public, it showcases existing works as well as around a dozen fresh pieces by global artists, commissioned by Ruinart’s director of arts and culture, Fabien Vallérian.
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On the face of it, you may wonder why a brand with such an illustrious history has broken with tradition. However, the Maison Ruinart story isn’t “The glass facade with the soft graduation from white to transparent was very simple but interesting, with inspiration from the bubbles in a glass of champagne. From outside, sometimes it is like the building is floating and [has] a soft feel; sometimes it is vanishing away into the background because of the reflection and melting into the sky. “The shape is also very important. The [existing] maison is really symmetrical and beautiful, and I like just one of rich French heritage; it is in equal parts one of innovation and sustainability. Look closely, and you will see all three elements woven into the fabric of its new incarnation.
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The first encounter guests will make with the new world of Ruinart is via Gautrand’s ‘Le Chemin Des Crayères.’ The meandering walled pathway carved by hand emulates the white chalk crayères, transporting guests from the street to be met by the front of the ultramodern pavilion.
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Outside the pavilion’s entrance hangs a flag — one of the new artworks — entitled Nature Calendar by British artist Marcus Coates. Today’s flag reads: “2 October, Chiffchaffs are about to fly south for the winter.” A new flag will be hoisted daily to celebrate the ‘invisible’ news from the natural world taking place each day at Ruinart’s Taissy vineyard.
Art is sewn into Ruinart’s history and, like Coates’ work, each new piece commissioned illuminates an intrinsic connection to nature. “Nature is key to Ruinart because we are deeply rooted in the environment,” Vallérian tells Elite Traveler.
“Our product comes from the soil and vines, so we are facing the challenges of global warming, pollution and lack of biodiversity. For us, it is a key element that we need to talk about. Of course it is about taking responsibility: the fact that we don’t transport bottles by air; eco-cases for the bottles; we reincluded diverse species in the vineyard. But when a company is telling you what to think about the environment, people aren’t always happy to get this message. When artists are telling you with their artworks, we strongly believe them to be the best ambassadors.”
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Sustainability is also a crucial design facet of the pavilion, with the building producing 80% of its own energy through geothermal and solar sources. The walls are crafted by stonemasons from local champagne-colored Soissons stone instead of concrete, and a green roof is supported by a wooden structure.
Stepping inside Fujimoto’s vast construction, visitors find themselves facing an enormous wall of glass framing the view of the courtyard garden and the historic buildings of the maison like a painting. “It was a very positive, exciting, big challenge to find out the right answer to such history and traditions, and elegance and quality,” says Fujimoto. “We tried to create [something] really modern, making a beautiful contrast and harmony together with the existing maison.
“The glass facade with the soft graduation from white to transparent was very simple but interesting, with inspiration from the bubbles in a glass of champagne. From outside, sometimes it is like the building is floating and [has] a soft feel; sometimes it is vanishing away into the background because of the reflection and melting into the sky.
“The shape is also very important. The [existing] maison is really symmetrical and beautiful, and I like to bring some kind of positive imperfection in a sense, to create an asymmetrical composition. For the curve of the roof, I got the inspiration from a huge bubble floating above and then cut it out of the building. One side is taller, and the other side is a bit lower. It’s calm and quiet and beautiful curvature.”
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ower. It’s calm and quiet and beautiful curvature.” Faced with the exquisite bones of a building, Nicolas, who is based in Tokyo, was at first not sure if his services were required. “The attitude of creators in Japan is, we ask ourselves: ‘Is this necessary or not?’ before we design something. When I saw the building, everything was glass, everything was transparent; I didn’t want to do anything,” he explains.
“Then finally when I looked at the project, the message of Ruinart is about nature and how you respect [it]. We tried to have this approach inside, to have a continuity with the outside. You don’t feel like you are entering a French salon or a French champagne house. There happens to be a bar, but you don’t see the function of the bar; the glasses disappear, they are all invisible. My job was to make things disappear and to highlight the emotional feel of nature.”
This can be seen in elements such as tall white stems emerging from the ground, made from innovative linen fibers, designed as an extension of the garden’s vegetation to reveal and conceal different spaces.
Looking to tomorrow was also central for Nicolas. “We created this beautiful carousel, like a sculpture, with upside-down bottles [of champagne], and it comes from the ground to the ceiling. This is a metaphor for how champagne comes from the past and will continue in the future. That’s what we are playing with: tradition and future.”
The carousel also has a concealing function, to mask the entrance of Ruinart’s new private underground cellar, reserved only for select clients. “Everyone who comes, we want to surprise. I remember the first visit we did [after the project was complete], everyone arrived expecting to see a chateau. Usually we enter from the past; from history and tradition. Here, we enter from the future, and this is a really positive image of where the brand is going and where the world is going,” says the designer.
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