Change at Champagne Laurent-Perrier as Michel Fauconnet officially retires

He joined Laurent-Perrier in 1973 – becoming cellar master as well as production manager in 2004 – and now, after more than 50 years at the maison, Michel Fauconnet has officially retired, handing over the baton to his long-standing assistant. That person is the aptly named Olivier Vigneron (meaning winegrower), who has worked alongside Fauconnet for the past 20 years, with Vigneron joining Laurent-Perrier in 2004 as Fauconnet took on a more senior role. At Vigneron’s first tasting with the UK press since he took on the mantle of cellar master, he joked that he was “young” compared to his predecessor, before stressing that he was “very familiar with the style of the house”. However, until recently, Vigneron wasn’t going to be Fauconnet’s successor, who was due to preside over a handover in 2020. As reported by db in May 2019, Laurent-Perrier had appointed another winemaker – Veuve Clicquot's Dominique Demarville and then, after his departure, Maximilien Bernardeau, who took up the position in in summer 2023, and then left a year later. Vigneron said that it was his decision not to put himself forward to become cellar master on the retirement of Fauconnet, now aged 72. “I wanted to be focused on the production part, and I didn’t want to travel the world, and I don’t speak English, which is why I didn’t want to be cellar master before,” said Vigneron – even though Fauconnet was primarily cellar-based and spoken only French. “However, I was very happy to take up the role,” he added, having been asked to take the prestigious job at the grande marque maison. Indeed, he acknowledged that Fauconnet “really trusts me”, following 20 years working side by side, before Vigneron added, “But he’s on the phone all the time.” Vigneron was asked about his surname, which, unusually, corresponds almost exactly to his profession, although he is now in the cellar, not the vineyard. “I come from a family of wine growers from the Jura in the seventeeth century,” he said, although his wife has a strong link with Champagne, being from a family of grower-producers in the Côte des Blancs, prompting Vigneron to state: “It is more difficult to be a vigneron than it is to be a chef des caves.” According to the official press information of Vigneron’s promotion, he hails from a farming family in the Marne region, but didn’t discover the world of winemaking until he was a student, when he took part in a grape harvest. He specialised with a degree in biochemistry from the University of Reims and earned a DNO (National Diploma in Oenology), graduating at the top of his class in 1997. He then joined the Despagne vineyard in Bordeaux, where he gained solid experience in winemaking and team management. In 2000, he met Alain Terrier, then Cellar Master at Laurent-Perrier, who hired him as assistant at De Castellane. Four years later, in 2004, he joined Laurent-Perrier under the leadership of Michel Fauconnet.