Pol Roger

The house was born of a family setback. Pol Roger's father was a notary who contracted an incurable illness and could no longer practise, so the son had to make his own living. His first sale of wine dates from January 1849, and the buyer was a merchant in Aÿ, the village where he himself was born.

The house is in Épernay and remains independent and family-owned: the fifth and sixth generations run it today. It has ninety-two hectares of its own vineyard and makes up the rest with fruit bought from growers.

The link with Winston Churchill is documented far earlier than is usually told: the first known invoice in his name is from 1908. The friendship with the family, on the other hand, began at a luncheon in Paris in November 1944, given by the British ambassador Duff Cooper, where Churchill was seated next to Odette Pol-Roger.

The Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill did not appear until 1984, with the 1975 vintage, almost twenty years after Churchill's death. It is made chiefly from pinot noir.