Vranken Pommery America – Thirty Seven East

When Art Meets Wine, Champagne Loves It

December 21, 2022December 24, 2022by JC AgidLeave a comment

When art meets wine, champagne loves it
(Post based on a conversation held at the Payne Whitney Mansion in New York City on October 26^th, 2022 during a fund-raiser dinner presented by the American Friends of La Cité du Vin).

In 1973, Château Mouton Rothschild paid tribute to Pablo Picasso, who passed away on April 8^th of that year, by decorating the Premier Cru Classé with an Atelier Mourlot printed label reproduction of the 1959 master’s painting, Bacchanale. A century before, in 1874, Louise Pommery created the first brut champagne and became famous for patronizing art and artists.

To celebrate the symbiotic relationship between art and wine, which was highlighted in the 2022 Cité du Vin exhibition ‘Picasso, the Effervescence of Shapes,’ the American Friends of the Cité du Vin invited Maïlys Vranken, President of Vranken Pommery America, and Éric Mourlot for an exclusive conversation. “There are serious dinners in New York,” said the co-host of the evening, France’s Cultural counselor in the United States and director of Villa Albertine Gaëtan Bruel, “and there are joyous ones; this one is a mix of both.”

So, while tasting a vertical of Pommery Champagne, including a Blanc de Blancs Apanage and a Cuvée Louise 2005 paired with a dinner prepared by Tastings NYC-SoFlo and Alain Ducasse veteran chef Laetitia Rouabah, Maïlys Vranken and Eric Mourlot told the tales of their artisanal companies’ own relationships with art and artists.

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Art: Never Forget

September 19, 2021September 22, 2021by JC AgidLeave a comment

Art: Never Forget
English edited by Delphine Schrank

Who could have imagined in March 2001 that when the Taliban gleefully blew up the three giant Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan, their appalling act of cultural vandalism was just a prelude to the assassination less than six months later of Commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, the country’s iconic resistance leader, and just two days after that, to the attacks of September 11? Silent vigils to the endless vicissitudes of human history, these storied sculptures had survived countless previous attempts to ransack or raid them since their creation sometime between the 4th and the 8th century.

More recently, Islamic State terrorists, or ISIS, made a central mission of destroying the archaeological sites across Syria and Iraq—art, the collateral victim of anger and stupidity.

Archaeologists had previously dismembered many of these relics and transported them to major Western museums—art, the collateral victim, or assumed booty, of powerful nations, human vanity, and plunderers too.

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Which Glass Should I Use to Taste Champagne?

October 11, 2020October 11, 2020by JC AgidLeave a comment

Which glass should I use to taste Champagne?
Excerpts from an interview with Clément Pierlot, Cellar Master of Pommery Champagne.
(This post was edited by Word Factor. Click here for more information)
A French version of this article was published on Le Petit Journal. click here.

It was an unexpected and happy movement. I brushed aside two glasses standing on a coffee table. They were wider in the middle and beveled down, yet their shape did not matter anymore. All that remained on the ground were shards of broken glass.

These two glasses were a gift, two champagne glasses that had nothing in common with the ones I used for my friends: six “tulip” glasses made of crystal, also known as flutes. Thin, elongated, fragile, and unique with reliefs of light on a stand, my flutes have a formal spot in my home.

I therefore could not care less about the two broken glasses, yet I was doubting: “Am I serving champagne with the proper glasses when I use the flutes?”

I asked the question to the Chef de Cave—the winemaker—of Pommery Champagne, Clément Pierlot, while interviewing him during an online tasting dinner in June 2020 organized by the French Institute-Alliance Française, Tastings and Vranken-Pommery America:

Pierlot’s answer was a resounding ‘no.’

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At Your Home Without Me: The Obstacle Race of Olivier Cassegrain

May 19, 2020June 16, 2020by JC Agid2 Comments

At Your Home Without Me: The Obstacle Race of Olivier Cassegrain

A jockey smoking a pipe on a galloping horse. In a single blue stroke of pencil, Marion Naufal’s watercolor sums up the challenges of a race, a style, a brand—Longchamp—and of the family Cassegrain whose history has been attached to America right from the start.

Comfortably seated on his New York terrace, the grandson of the Longchamp’s founder, Olivier Cassegrain, is meticulously watching over the American destiny of the family business.

While retail sales in Texas are slowly picking up again, the original Madison Avenue boutique is still closed along with all the other luxury brands in Manhattan. In Soho, the Maison Longchamp remains as empty as the Hudson Yards Vessel where, until a few weeks ago, tourists, business travelers and New Yorkers flocked. “The stairs of the Vessel are with those of the Soho boutique the most famous in New York,” says Cassegrain. They are both the work of the same English architect. “I would be quite happy to see more people on these stairs soon,” adds the Vice-President of Longchamp United States with a smile, “at least a little more on those in SoHo than on those of Hudson Yards.” Filling these stairs is just an additional challenge for the man who loves nothing more than overcoming obstacles with a cigar on his lips.

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Bubbles and Bouquets, with a French Flair in Times of COVID-19

April 8, 2020April 12, 2020by JC AgidLeave a comment

Bubbles and Bouquets, with a French Flair

A dinner delivered to your home by Alexandra Morris‘ catering company, accompanied by rosé wines and French champagnes imported by Mailys Vranken; a breakfast or a quiche, those found at Michèle Saint Laurent and Aksana Ivaniuk‘s Chez Les Frenchies next door to the Lycée Français of New York; a bouquet of flowers prepared by the floral artist Agnès de Villarson; or cooking the recipes offered by Mirjam Lavabre: not only is it possible, but ordering from these women entrepreneurs is also insuring the existence of their businesses and supporting the creative and collaborative Francophone women’s leadership in New York.

As for so many other small businesses, the year 2020 had started perfectly for the American subsidiary of Vranken-Pommery group and for Tastings, one of New York’s most famous caterers and owner of two restaurants in East Harlem.

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