A month in wine
Pol Roger unearths rare 19th century Champagnes; no 2017 vintage for Château Climens
118 Years Ago disaster struck Champagne Pol Roger’s cellars in Epernay. Following a period of extreme cold and damp, on 23 February 1900, vast stretches of wall suddenly collapsed during the night, demolishing adjoining buildings and burying 1.5 million bottles of wine, along with 500 casks.
The resulting damage was so extensive that the ground above the cellars caved in, causing the street level to fall by four metres. Large fissures also formed in the nearby roads, rue Henri le Large and rue godart-Roger.
A contemporary account from Le Vigneron Champenois journal tells how Pol Roger’s son, Maurice Roger, awoke at 2am to ‘a dull rumble similar to the sound of thunder’. It noted: ‘When the workers arrived a few hours later, the disaster was complete.’
Maurice and his brother georges Roger had taken over the company from their father when he died of pneumonia in 1899. The pair had hoped to salvage the buried wines by tunnelling into the rubble. But after a similar cave-in occurred a month later at the nearby property of godart-Roger, the plans were abandoned, along with the ruined cellars.
Fast-forward 118 years and Champagne Pol Roger is now building a new packaging facility on the same plot of land. on 15 January, a drilling session hit upon an underground chamber, which contained a cache of broken glass and an intact bottle of Champagne.
After further excavation, 19 more bottles were lifted unscathed from the rubble.
‘The wines are clear, the levels are correct and the corks are depressed,’ commented the Champagne house. ‘These bottles are still on their lees and will have to be hand riddled and disgorged before being tasted.’
The exact age of the bottles is hard to determine, but Pol Roger has confirmed they will be from vintages between 1887 and 1898.
The discovery was made by Dominic Petit, Pol Roger’s chef de cave of 19 years, and the man who will succeed him in April, Damien Cambres. However wet weather has so far prevented Petit and Cambres from unearthing any more of the cellars’ contents.