#116 - The story of Marie-Antoinette's Champagne: with Maud Rabin, Managing Director of Rare Champagne

Pour a glass and hold onto your tiara: this episode drops us straight into the gilded world of Rare Champagne, the vintage-only prestige cuvée born at the court of Versailles. We sit down with Maud Rabin, Managing Director of Rare Champagne, inside the house's headquarters in Reims (in the Salon Marie-Antoinette itself) to unravel a story that runs from a queen's love of pineapple in 1785 to a bottle dressed by Van Cleef & Arpels two centuries later. Maud trades ten years in fashion for the world of Champagne, tracks down the very family who relaunched the brand, and reveals why Rare Champagne only exists in vintage years, why it took four decades to make just four rosés, and why the tiara on every bottle is glued by hand, one dot at a time, by a team of eight women in Reims. Expect royal history, Chardonnay obsession, and a glass of Rare 1988 paired with Comte. Tune in! ▬▬ 🎁 GIFTS 🎁 ▬▬ 📚 Marie-Antoinette, by Stefan Zweig 📚 La Rose de Versailles (Lady Oscar), by Riyoko Ikeda (French History through the story of Marie-Antoinette, in a manga) 📚 Vigneronne, by Laure Gasparotto 🍾 Learn more about Rare Champagne: https://www.rare-champagne.com/ 👸🏼 From Septembre 22, 2026 to January 24, 2027: celebration of the 20 years of the movie Marie-Antoinette by Sofia Coppola, through an exhibition presented at the Petit Trianon, at Château de Versailles 🎁 Get your wine essentials on our shop: a curated selection of wine accessories, posters and much more 🗺️ Get the best Wine Map of the Champagne region: as information as decorative ▬▬ ⭐️ ABOUT ⭐️ ▬▬ My name is Antoine, and I’ve been passionate about wine for several years. I knew nothing at first, so I went out to meet the biggest figures in the industry and turned those encounters into a podcast that’s now listened to by over 100,000 people. I now share with you what I’ve learned, and I hope we embark together on a beautiful wine journey to discover the finest experiences. ALCOHOL ABUSE IS DANGEROUS FOUR YOUR HEALTH. CONSUME IN MODERATION. Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.