Ruinart marks a century of champagne with a landmark historical tasting

What happened

Ruinart has organised a historical tasting in Champagne to mark one hundred years of production, spanning the period from 1926 to 2026. The event, which took place on 19 April 2026, brought together bottles drawn from across that entire century, presenting them as a continuous record of the house's winemaking over successive decades.

The tasting was conceived as a centennial celebration, inviting participants to move through a hundred years of champagne in a single sitting — an undertaking that is, by any measure, exceptional in its scope.

Why it matters

Historical tastings of this scale are genuinely uncommon. To assemble and present champagnes spanning a full century is both a logistical and archival achievement, requiring the preservation of bottles across conditions and generations that few houses are positioned to replicate.

For those with a serious interest in champagne, such an event offers something that no technical document or retrospective account can fully provide: the direct, sensory experience of how a house's style and the region's character have shifted across time. Vintages separated by decades carry within them the imprint of different climates, different hands, and different understandings of what champagne should be. To taste them in sequence is to read that history rather than merely to hear it described.

The centennial framing — 1926 to 2026 — also underscores the continuity of Ruinart's presence in Champagne across a period that encompassed profound change, both within the wine world and far beyond it.

Context

Ruinart is one of the established houses of the Champagne region, with roots that predate the period celebrated by this tasting. The centennial event focuses specifically on the hundred years from 1926, marking that span as a distinct chapter in the house's longer history.

Historical tastings of this kind serve a dual purpose: they function as a form of institutional memory for the house itself, and as a contribution to the broader understanding of how champagne has developed as a category. In a region where heritage is both a commercial and a cultural asset, the ability to present a century of production in a single event carries considerable weight.