Reasonable doubt on Jay-Z’s genie in a bottle
From cuvée to caveat: Truth could burst the bubble
T ALL started in a New York wine shop in 2006. Rapper Jay-Z, as one version of the story goes, stumbled upon his next big obsession. Gold bottle? Check. Unique label, an ace of spades? Check.
Some time later, the Champagne, which had just been introduced to the market that year, appeared as a plot device in Jay-Z’s Show Me What U Got video.
There he was, lounging like a king at his card table, waving away a bottle of Cristal before being presented with a suitcase carrying a large bottle of Armand de Brignac Champagne. The rest is history. The trouble is, no one is quite sure how true that story is.
The tale is clouded by apparently unlikely coincidences. Complicating things is Jay-Z’s acquisition of the Armand de Brignac brand, which he affectionately calls “Ace of Spades”.
Armand de Brignac Champagne is produced by eight people in the quaint French town of Chigny-les-Roses. The Cattier family house that makes it has a history in the business that dates back more than 250 years.
But before Jay-Z made Armand de Brignac the next big tiny-bubbles thing in rap culture in 2006, not long after he had decided to boycott Cristal, virtually no one had heard of the brand.
Here, for instance, is the headline of a 2006 Businessweek story: Is the Champagne in the Jay-Z video for real? It’s complicated.
Before making Armand de Brignac, the Cattier house produced a Champagne called Antique Gold, which came in a nearly identical gold bottle. Some have speculated that Armand de Brignac is identical to Antique Gold, except that it’s been aged longer.
Whatever the difference, Armand de Brignac had no real market presence before Jay-Z brought it to the masses.
Antique Gold – which is no longer being sold – retailed for about $60 in Europe and the US. The manufacturer’s suggested retail price for a single bottle of Armand de Brignac Champagne is about $300 (about R3 400).
The brand includes a huge 30-litre Midas bottle, launched in 2011, which sells for about $200 000 a pop.
Sovereign Brands in New York owned Armand de Brignac until the sale to Jay-Z.
“We have had a wonderful relationship with Jay-Z throughout the years since he discovered Armand de Brignac,” said Yvonne Lardner, a communications executive for Sovereign Brands.
“He became interested in owning the brand and made us an offer we simply couldn’t refuse.”
Whether Jay-Z had a formal or even unofficial business relationship with Armand de Brignac Champagne before the purchase is unclear.
For his 2011 book, Empire State of Mind: How Jay-Z Went from Street Corner to Corner Office, journalist Zack O’Malley Greenburg travelled to France looking for answers to a few burning questions related to the rapper and his favourite Champagne.
IWhat was the name of the wine store where Jay-Z first discovered that fateful bottle of Armand de Brignac?
No one seems to know.
What does that now-famous gold bottle look like before it reaches the market?
Well, apparently just like those Antique Gold bottles, as it doesn’t yet have the signature “ace of spades” label on it.
O’Malley Greenburg wrote that the connec- tion between Jay-Z and “Ace of Spades” wasn’t just happenstance; it was, he wrote, shrewd business from the beginning.
The people he interviewed, he wrote, “confirmed that Jay-Z receives millions of dollars a year for his association with Armand de Brignac”.
Shortly after the ace of spades label showed up in that 2006 Jay-Z video, Brett Berish of Sovereign Brands insisted, in a statement reported by the Wall Street Journal, that it wasn’t product placement.
“Armand de Brignac and Jay-Z have not entered into any agreement, sponsorship or otherwise,” Berish said.
In his book, O’Malley Greenburg wrote: “Jay-Z publicly denies any connection to Armand de Brignac because he wants to be seen as a connoisseur, a trendsetter with the sophistication to anoint a successor to Cristal.
“Or, as Bienvenu offhandedly explained to me: ‘He doesn’t want to be considered a brand ambassador or something like this.’ More important, Jay-Z realises that the revelation of a financial connection could endanger the authenticity of his endorsement - and jeopardise a lucrative arrangement. “The maths looks extremely favourable for Jay-Z. The production cost for a bottle of Armand de Brignac is about $13; the wholesale price is $225. The maximum output is 60 000 bottles a year. If Jay-Z splits the $212-a-bottle profit evenly with Cattier and Sovereign, a back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests his annual take would be a little over $4 million. One of my sources confir med that number and added that Jay-Z might have received equity in Sovereign Brands worth about $50m. All for dropping a few lyrical references and featuring Armand de Brignac in a couple of videos.”
There are more than a few lyrical references as well.
“This Ace of Spades look like an Oscar” – We Made It Freestyle.
“All of this Ace of Spades I drink just to piss out. I mean I like the taste could’ve saved myself 6 thou’s” – Success.
“Where refrigerators, where Ace of Spades two I store!” – Jay-Z’s verse in Rick Ross’s Maybach Music.
“I’m back clubbing, Ace of Spades bubbly. Drink it from the bottle, who the (expletive) need a bucket?” – in 50 Cent’s I Get Money remix.
Even Jay-Z’s super-rich superstar wife, Beyoncé, got in the game with their joint track Drunk in Love: “Boy, I’m drinking, get my brain right/Armand de Brignac, gangster wife.”
Years of expert product placement, rap lyrics and shows of ostentation – including a $100 000 display of bottles at a fund-raiser for President Barack Obama – have made the brand unmistakably linked to the reigning king of rap. Jay-Z just made that connection official this week.
There is now only one question that remains: Is it any good?
“It tastes like (excrement),” Lyle Fass, a New York wine buyer, told O’Malley Greenburg. “At least Cristal tastes good.”
Yet in 2010, Fine Magazine named it the top bottle on its list of the 100 best Champagnes.
So what gives?
“The brut gold cuvée is well made, even if it may not be the most exciting Champagne,” explained wine critic and Champagne specialist Peter Liem.
“This means that it will not offend or puzzle the tasters, which translates into a relatively high aggregate score of all panel members for the wine.” – Washington Post