LACLAYE reinvents the opening of a champagne bottle
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L'INSTANT CHAMPAGNE
With its table jewel brought back from a bygone era, Laclaye allows sommeliers and enthusiasts to stage champagne at the table like never before. And all of this, thanks to a grandmother who never stopped opening her bottles herself.
Laclaye is the story of a working tool that became a table jewel. It is also the story of a centenarian grandmother, a strong and independent woman, who for many years opened her champagne bottles herself using this historic tool. And it is the story of a ritual that champagne lacked, and which sommeliers are now ready to embrace. It is all of this and also a piece of metal whose use disappeared into the depths of Champagne cellars with the widespread adoption of the crown cap about fifty years ago. Let us explain.
A table jewel
The table jewel is the claye, a metal object available in several formats (from credit card size to a “classic” version inspired by tools from the 1930s) and in various materials (including Damascus steel, tortoiseshell, and even a rivet from the Eiffel Tower, numbered and authenticated), with leather cases hand-stitched by artisans, some of them from Champagne. A bespoke craftsmanship for this object, which allows a bottle of champagne to be opened effortlessly… and safely: after all, there are six bars of pressure in a bottle at least twice that of a car tire.
A grandmother
The grandmother’s name is Raymonde, and it was her granddaughter, Anne-Sophie Le Poder, who one day asked her what that tool was the one she had always seen and with which her grandmother opened her champagne bottles. Raymonde gave it to her, explaining that from now on, it would be her turn to open the bottles. The tool was far from new, but there was no question of leaving her grandmother without one: Anne-Sophie set out to find a replacement, only to quickly realize that the only ones she could find were second-hand, in flea markets or garage sales. Very soon, the conclusion became unavoidable: they were no longer being made…
A cap
And if it is no longer produced, it is simply because it belongs to another time. It was once used by cellar workers to disgorge bottles sealed with cork during secondary fermentation, before crown caps existed. This practice was widespread until the 1960s, when the crown cap became democratized, enabling the development of automated disgorging lines. Less poetic, perhaps, but this innovation increased productivity five or sixfold. It is often said that use shapes the tool here, it is the disappearance of the use that led the tool into oblivion.
A service ritual
Except that Raymonde, in fact, did not use it for disgorging bottles, but simply for opening them. She transformed a working tool into a practical instrument. Anne-Sophie Le Poder’s intuition was to turn this everyday gesture into a true ritual. “The champagne bottle was the only one without a service ritual and was not placed on the table at the moment of opening,” she explains. The claye makes this possible. Sommeliers have embraced the concept, requesting masterclasses and even creating a dedicated event for competitions. Fabrice Sommier, president of the French Sommeliers Association, even declared in a manifesto: “It is time to make the opening of a bottle of champagne an elegant act by giving it a service ritual that celebrates it in all its nobility.”
par Yann Tourbe sur L'INSTANT CHAMPAGNE.
