It all began with Florens-Louis Heidsieck. Born in Westphalia in 1749, this son of a Protestant minister started out as a draper in Reims, where he fell in love with a girl from Champagne—and with the wine from Champagne. He was a self-educated man, overcome with the ambition “to make a cuvée worthy of a queen.” In 1785 he founded the cloth and wine trading company Heidsieck & Co. He straightaway made his name with a distinctive Champagne, whose reputation quickly spread beyond the local region and won favor at court.

On the death of Florens-Louis Heidsieck in 1828, Christian Heidsieck, his nephew, and Henri-Guillaume Piper, a talented man with tremendous business acumen, joined forces. From Hapsburg princes to Chinese emperors, 14 royal and imperial courts granted Piper the distinction of becoming their “authorized supplier.” High society around the world coveted “the Piper by Heidsieck.” In 1835, Christian Heidsieck suddenly died and, in 1838, his wife remarried Henri-Guillaume Piper. And thus the PIPER-HEIDSIECK brand was born.

Extraordinary resilience

Upon the death of Henri-Guillaume in 1870, Jacques-Charles Théodore Kunkelmann, a partner since 1851, took over the reins at PIPER-HEIDSIECK. In 1892, his son, Ferdinand-Théodore, succeeded him. His daughter Yolande married the Marquis Jean de Suarez d’Aulan in 1926. A pioneering aviator, this amazing man came onto the scene and promoted the Maison all around the world from behind the controls of his own aircraft. During the Second World War, this tireless and courageous man of action agreed to hide weapons in his cellars for use by the Champagne Resistance. And the eve of his arrest by the Gestapo, he escaped to North Africa where he became a fighter pilot for the famous Lafayette Escadrille Squadron. He died in combat in 1944.