Douglas Blyde joined the winners of the Gosset Matchmakers competition on their prize trip to Champagne’s oldest house. Representing the 2023 edition were chef, Gail Ge’er Li of Dinings SW3, who claimed the title with sommelier, Jiachen Lu for their turbot and scallop puff, deftly paired with Gosset Grande Rosé. The 2024 winners, chef, Oliver Grieve and sommelier, Camilla Bonnannini of Birmingham’s Albatross Death Cult, triumphed with quail, nam jim, and carrot three ways – matched with the succulent Gosset Petite Douceur Rosé. Now in its tenth year, Gosset Matchmakers has become a rite of passage for rising chefs and sommeliers, where champagne is not the afterthought, but the axis.
Champagne – that codified spark of civilisation – is a region shaped as much by rupture as refinement. Its soils, once seabeds, are calcified with memory and violence, trawled by monks and later, like its cathedrals, shredded by shrapnel. The cellars of Aÿ, Reims, and Épernay once sheltered troops; now they teem with inquisitive sommeliers. Phylloxera nearly finished the job. So did occupation. Today, the threat is subtler: relevance. English sparkling wines are no longer comic relief. Tasmania, the Cape, Franciacorta – even China – produce bubbles with enough nerve to claim their place. Prosecco, meanwhile, is pop culture in a flute. Champagne, once sovereign and unassailable, must now compete – not just on myth, but on muscle.
And yet, Maison Gosset holds its line with noble conviction amidst this clatter. Founded in 1584 by Pierre Gosset, alderman of Aÿ, and a man of political and viticultural ambition, the house is the oldest in Champagne. Before there were bubbles, there was wine: Gosset’s still reds jostled for pride of place at the tables of French kings, shoulder to shoulder with Beaune. It wasn’t until the eighteenth century, when the wines of Aÿ began to sparkle, that the family adopted the méthode champenoise, with what one suspects was slight reluctance.
This initial tension – between silence and sparkle, restraint and radiance – continues to animate the house’s soul. Gosset doesn’t shout; it doesn’t need to. Its strength lies in independence, its resistance to trends, and its stylistic fidelity to freshness, poise and evolution over time.
Since 1994, the house has been under the discreet guardianship of the Renaud-Cointreau family, also proprietors of Cognac Frapin. Under Jean-Pierre Cointreau, a methodical but meaningful expansion has taken place. Today, Gosset produces nearly a million bottles annually and exports to over 70 countries. Its operations span both Aÿ and Épernay – the latter home to a serene nineteenth-century estate, complete with the work, ‘Xabana’ by artist, Matthias Neumann, beehives, and over a mile of cellars sunk twenty metres beneath a wildflower meadow. These chalk-hewn vaults maintain a constant 11°C and cradle some 2.5 million bottles, while graffiti scrawled over centuries offers a human fingerprint – among them, the signature of a Polish bomb disposal officer who helped liberate Épernay in 1944.
The De Varine Doctrine
There are no LED projections. No tourist train. Gosset does not perform. Its substance lies in discipline. Here, heritage is not curated, but practised – bottle by bottle, blend by blend. At the centre is cellar master and Managing Director, Odilon de Varine: an oenologist with a taste for speed on the track, but never in the winery. As comfortable behind the wheel of a concept Lotus as he is at the tasting bench, de Varine collects, restores, and races cars with the same meticulous precision he applies to base wines – a philosophy he has honed at Gosset since 2006.
He does not chase fanfare. There is no oak, no malolactic fermentation, no hurried tricks in the immaculate winery. ‘We make wine first,’ de Varine insists. His wines are structured for longevity, built on clarity and tension rather than immediate charm. The 2012 Celebris is a case in point: tightly coiled, at first, with notes of citrus rind, blanched almond, and chalk dust. Joining the saline, hibiscus fragranced Gosset Grand Rosé, the newly released Suzanne Rosé – named after the Bouzy-born matriarch who steered the house through the Second World War and first dared to bottle rosé in clear glass – is another. A gastronomic mosaic, limited to just 5,000 bottles.
During a reveal of the intense blends from 2024, de Varine described the act of composition as ‘building a team.’ He begins with the Blanc de Blancs, always in the early sunlight of spring. At this stage, the finish matters more than the opening: lees ageing will do its slow work. Blind tastings ensure no parcel, no cru, gets preferential treatment. In response to warmer vintages, he increasingly leans towards Chardonnay from cooler, north-facing slopes. And while Pinot Meunier was once derided – its resilience leading to it being planted in the poorest sites – de Varine is rehabilitating its reputation.
His wines are built to evolve, to converse with food rather than dominate it. But for de Varine, the philosophy runs deeper. ‘We are proud to be the oldest wine house in Champagne,’ he says – not as a boast, but as a responsibility. Gosset, in his view, has always been a pioneer: from resisting malolactic fermentation to favouring purity over polish, it has led by example, not volume. That same ethos drives the Matchmakers competition. It is not a marketing exercise, but a continuation of the house’s role as standard-bearer, supporting emerging chef-sommelier teams who show the same spirit of originality and rigour. Legacy, here, is not something you inherit and protect. It is something you build on, by championing those who shape what comes next.
Even the packaging plays its part. From the flared antique bottle, first commissioned by Jean Gosset in the eighteenth century, to the distinctive neck medallion which stands proud from an ice bucket, a nod to Albert Gosset, every visual element speaks of individualism rather than conformity. Even the 2009 expansion to Épernay, timed to coincide with the house’s 425th anniversary, was a move of practical intent – increasing capacity without compromising soul.
Gosset Matchmakers 2025 – Call for Entries
Applications are now open for the 2025 edition of Gosset Matchmakers. This year’s competition once again centres on the limpid, pear-scented, lightly nutty Gosset Grande Réserve, with entrants invited to submit a savoury or sweet dish which frames the cuvée’s character with care and imagination. Teams must work within a £40 ingredient budget – a constraint which enforces both creativity and fairness.
Key Dates:
- Entry deadline: Monday, 7th July
- Finalists announced: Early September
- Live final: Monday 29th September at Cord by Le Cordon Bleu, London
At the final, five teams will present their initial dish before being handed a mystery wine and a surprise box of ingredients from which they must craft a second pairing – a trial by fire, designed to mimic the intensity of hospitality service.
The winning duo will be invited to Maison Gosset for a behind-the-scenes immersion into the house’s daily workings, from vineyards to chalk cellars, along with the presentation of an engraved magnum ice bucket and, more valuably, a place in the legacy of Champagne’s most enduring name.
