Jacquart Turns to Music to Sharpen the Art of Champagne Tasting

What happened

Jacquart, the champagne house established in Reims, has introduced music as a formal component of its tasting experience. Rather than treating degustation as a purely olfactory and gustatory exercise, the house now employs sound as a deliberate tool to heighten sensory awareness and prompt tasters to give voice to their perceptions. The initiative positions music not as ambient decoration but as an active element in the process of understanding what is in the glass.

Why it matters

The move signals a broader willingness among Champagne producers to look beyond the liquid itself when constructing an encounter with their wines. By engaging an additional sense, Jacquart is inviting its guests to approach tasting with a different quality of attention — one that may unlock responses and observations that a conventional degustation would leave dormant. In a region where many houses compete on heritage and terroir, the deliberate cultivation of a multisensory environment represents a considered effort to differentiate the brand and deepen the relationship between producer and consumer. It also reflects a growing recognition that the circumstances in which champagne is tasted are as consequential as the champagne itself.

Context

Jacquart is based in Reims, one of the principal cities of the Champagne appellation in northern France. The house operates within a landscape of established producers, each seeking ways to communicate the character of their wines and to build lasting connections with an increasingly discerning public. The use of music as a tasting aid is part of a wider conversation taking place across the fine wine world about how multisensory environments influence perception and memory. For Champagne in particular — a category defined by occasion and atmosphere — the question of how a wine is experienced, and not merely what it contains, carries considerable commercial and cultural weight.