1 · Opening
Nicolas Ruinart wrote in his ledger on 1 September 1729 that he was starting a business devoted to wine with bubbles. The book still sits in the entrance. He was a cloth merchant, and for six years the champagne was a gift to cloth buyers before it outgrew the trade that paid for it.
2 · Why it matters
Louis XV had legalised the transport of wine in bottles the year before. Until then wine moved in barrels, which meant sparkling wine could not leave the district that made it. Ruinart is what happens when a man reads a regulation correctly.
The receiving came later and matters as much. From 1768 the house bought the crayères beneath Reims — chalk quarries cut in Roman times, eight kilometres of them, listed in 1931 and now UNESCO-inscribed. A production necessity became the most theatrical interior in the wine trade, and the visit became part of the product.
3 · Signature & ritual
Chardonnay, and chalk. In October 2024 the house opened the Pavillon Nicolas Ruinart — lounges, a champagne bar, a dining room, a boutique and a terrace. A producer that builds a hospitality building has stopped merely tolerating guests.
4 · What this house does not solve
Oldest is a contested title. Ruinart is the first house founded exclusively for champagne; older firms sold wine from Champagne before it sparkled, and say so.
The buildings on Saint-Nicaise hill were destroyed in the First World War and rebuilt by the architect Thiérot to the original plan. What visitors admire above ground is a 1920s reconstruction; the cellars below are the old part.
Visits are by appointment, priced, and sell out months ahead. This is a house that receives on its own terms.
5 · LHL connections
- LHL-S-202Moët & ChandonFounded fourteen years later and proved the trade could be enormous.
- LHL-S-205Champagne PommeryThe other Reims house that made its cellars a room people travel to.
6 · Timeline
- 1729Nicolas Ruinart records the founding of the house on 1 September.
- 1768The house buys the crayères beneath Reims and moves underground.
- 1931The cellars are listed; they are later UNESCO-inscribed.
- 2024The Pavillon Nicolas Ruinart opens in October.
7 · LHL story
“A Regulation, Read Correctly” — Louis XV permitted wine to travel in bottles in 1728. Ruinart exists because one cloth merchant understood what that meant.
Sources
What the entry rests on. Each reference records the specific facts it supports, so a disputed line can be traced to the account it came from.