DOM THIERRY RUINART

Dom Thierry Ruinart was an intuitive, visionary, hardworking, and modest Benedictine monk who lived from 1657-1709 and was a contemporary of Louis XIV. A brilliant theologian and historian, at the age of 23 he left his home in Champagne to go to the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, one of the most influential centres of learning near Paris. While there, he was exposed to the city and court where he gained an awareness of a more worldly life. Specifically, he learned of a new “wine with bubbles,” not yet known as champagne, which was already popular among young aristocrats. On September 1st 1729, in Reims, at the heart of the Champagne region, Nicolas Ruinart drafted the founding charter of Maison Ruinart, creating the world's first ever champagne-producing company. This gave rise to an enterprise that continues to flourish and to prosper nearly three hundred years later. The intuition of his uncle, the monk who had first shown him the way, had thus inspired an initiative that was to make history.