New York City · La Fête du Champagne

Pol Roger Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill Dinner

Pol Roger founded his eponymous champagne house in 1849 in Aÿ and quickly moved to Epernay in 1851 where it has remained ever since. The house has famously enjoyed a long relationship with the United Kingdom, first by royal warrant to Queen Victoria in 1877 but more famously with Sir Winston Churchill, who began a profound friendship with Odette Pol Roger after meeting at the British embassy in Paris in 1945. Pol Roger had been the favorite champagne of Churchill since 1908 – he even named one of his racehorses “Pol Roger” and was rumored to have consumed 42,000 bottles of Pol Roger in his lifetime! This legacy of this friendship reverberated through the decades thereafter – in 1965 Pol Roger released its UK-bound bottles with black-bordered labels to mourn Churchill’s death, and then in 1984, it released its first vintage, 1975, of Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill in his honor. Always Pinot Noir-dominant, although the house never reveals the exact composition, Cuvée Sir Winston is only made in the best years from exclusively grand cru grapes, creating a structured and powerful wine whose broad and pure fruit gives way with age to darker notes of spice, coffee, chocolate, and – some say – Sir Winston’s favored cigars. This unprecedented dinner with Bastien Collard de Billy, part of the 6th generation of the Pol Roger family, will feature twelve great vintages of Churchill, including a magnificent quartet of the house’s Vinothèque project - original disgorgements kept in the family’s private cellar 33 meters below ground. Each wine will be poured from magnum, which Churchill famously noted as his ideal format. The man knew his stuff! A tasting menu from Chef Emma Bengtsson at two Michelin-starred modern nordic restaurant Aquavit will complement these stunning wines at this epic kickoff to La Fête 2026.