In 1893, Jules Anatol Collery and his wife laid the foundation for the Collery brand. Their son Pierre and his wife Geneviève then took over the business, but experienced severe crises triggered by the First World War. However, Geneviève proved to be a shrewd businesswoman, adeptly placing her wines and champagnes in the restaurants, brasseries and department stores of Paris. After the Second World War, their eldest son Jean took over, who in the 1970s handed over the fortunes of Collery to his son. Alain founded a wine museum in Aÿ in 1973 and initiated events related to wine and champagne – the foundation for wine tourism, which is still popular today. In the ’90s, markets changed and Collery’s sales slowed until the 2010s, the family wasn’t as involved as they had been for years. Fascinated by the eventful family history and Collery’s legacy, Nicolas Gueusquin decided in 2014 to continue Collery’s philosophy by purchasing the brand.
After 6 years of redevelopment, Champagne Collery was ready to present its rebirthing wines, matching and even exceeding historic quality of the cuvées. In order to achieve its goals, Collery’s new team decided to use only Grand Cru grape to make their champagnes. This path was a real challenge: since only 17 villages out of 330 in Champagne are classified as Grand Cru, on top of the vineyard owned by Collery, it was needed to convince growers to direct some of their grape to Collery. It has been achieve finding growers thriving for quality of their grape and careful about what they would become which is the Collery’s core value.
The wines are produced in a modern winery equipped with stainless steel thermoregulated vat, casks and barrels. Those wooden containers are used to benefit from micro oxygenation and convection movements allowing intrinsic aromatic development rather than bringing woodiness to the wines. Benefiting a long aging on the lees after bottling, Collery was finally ready to presents its creatin in 2020 but COVID prevented from reaching out widely. Fortunately, 2021 and 2022 saw Champagne market developing again and Collery got the chance to reach out to foreign Champagne Lovers, discovering its history and its Grand Cru cuvées.
Very recently, SAS COLLERY has joined Japan Awards 2022 and won THREE Gold Medal Awards in this prestigious competition:
NV Brut Grand Cru
Awarded Gold by Business News Japan
Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru
Awarded Gold by Business News Japan
EmpyreumatiC 2014 Grand Cru
Awarded Gold by Business News Japan
Interview of Japan Awards to Mr. Romain LEVECQUE
Director
Do you already export to JAPAN ? If yes, where ? If no, what type of importers & distributors are you looking for in JAPAN ?
Answer : Yes we export to Japan, to Ark Cellar. Ark Cellar is a young company with a focus on quality wines targeted to selected HORECA and Wineshops. Collery living a big renewal, it felt natural and energizing to team up with partner living the same momentum as we do.
What is the most unique and qualitative part of your products, different from competitors ?
Answer : We are one of the only (maybe the only?) champagne house offering a full range of cuvées only made with Grand Cru grape. They are only 17 villages in Champagnes that are Grand Cru out of the 330 villages that can make grape for Champagne. It is a rarity, a strong promise of quality and our goal, our only choice I would say, is to craft cuvées meeting the expectations of people choosing Grand Cru cuvées. I mean, since we only do Grand Cru, revendicate it and put it on the label, people have strong expectations when drinking our champagnes so we MUST make meet those expectations. To reach those objectives, we’ve totally re-equipped our winery a couple of years ago, both with stainless steel thermoregulated vats, wooden casks (from 12 to 40 HL) and keep on expanding our barrels stock from many origins (Sauternes, Burgundy, US oak, etc.). Last but not least, we play a lot with dosage techniques: we love using different type of barrels to bring that little finish that changes everything to our cuvées.
When did you start to export your brand worldwide, and what is your development plan for the next years ?
Answer : Collery has been exporting since the 1930’s, mostly in Europe and the US. It turned pretty low between the early 2000’s to mid-2010’s. Yet we’ve rebirth to come back stronger to our historical markets. Since we’re offering connoisseur’s cuvées, we are targeting mature markets for champagne. Which means market where champagne consumers are savvy, looking for more confidential brands, highly qualitative, with a good understanding of what Grand Cru means. Indeed Japan is part of this champagne’s savvy world with a very good knowledge of this product and very enthusiasts consumers.
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